Surf And Turf 300

blorg wrote: »

Managed 150km solo on Saturday at an average of 31km/h and wasn't killing myself, was quite happy with that.

Bloody hell, Ivan, at that rate you'll be getting to the controls before they even open.

OK, here's last year's routesheet - there has been some work on the roads so the section marked in red might be a little different this year.

Entry fee will be €5, and Aidan would appreciate it if you would let him know a week in advance that you're planning on turning up so that he can let the cafe know how many people to expect for the lunch stop. (brosnanaidan@eircom.net)

And I see Paul O'D is trucking along at LEL. From a YACF thread:

Just had Paul O'Donoghue here, looking well but a bit blown about.

Haven't seen anything about the other Irish riders though.

Well, I don't mind saying that was pretty tough going at times. There's something particularly disheartening about opening the door on the way out to an all-day ride and discovering that it's raining. I could hear the wind while I was lying in bed but somehow I didn't even consider the possibility that it was raining as well. Ten of us met up at the petrol station on the Dungarvan road, but one had the wisdom to duck back inside his camper van to wait for the rain to ease so nine of us rolled out. As ever, it wasn't too bad once you were out there but the anticipation was grim. By the time we got to Cahir it was more or less daylight and the ran was starting to lift but the drizzle persisted for another couple of hours and there were a couple of chutes on slippery descents - no serious injuries but plenty of cuts and grazes.

The group split around Lismore into six and two with Aidan (the organiser) packing on account of serious knee pain, wisely in view of the series of short, sharp climbs that we hit around Knockanore - lovely riding through the woods at the verge of the lake but so many little jumps that were just a little too steep and long to power up. There was a flattish run into Ardmore where we stopped for lunch - the cafe staff were polite enough not to draw attention to the fact that we were as filthy as a crew of miners after a hard day down the pits but diplomatically seated us in a small side room by ourselves. Full irish breakfasts all round improved spirits all round.

The next stretch brought us to the surf - following the coast road around through Dungarvan and Bunmahon (where we caught up with the rest, including John who had emerged from his camper van an hour after we left and made good time to catch up). The sun was breaking through the clouds and the views of the coast from the headlands were spectacular. It didn't hurt that we had a tailwind to drive us over the undulating roads. I think it was on the far side of Annstown that we nearly ran headlong into a wedding party who for some reason thought it was okay to park two cars in the middle of the road (around the corner on a fast descent no less) while they took pictures of the happy couple. We turned inland at that point, taking some serious grass-down-the-middle roads up to Waterford town and on to Carrick-on-Suir, crossing some familiar ground from the REK 400. Just outside Waterford, Blorg jetted up the road on the pretext of taking a leak and we didn't hear from him again until half-seven that evening when he started texting to let us know he had finished and how far had we to go. Given that I was still grinding my way over some rough road to Fethard, this was not as welcome as it might have been.

Leaving Carrick we had the painful sight of signs for Clonmel with disgustingly low mileage on them, knowing that we instead would be detouring around the back of Slievenamon to Fethard before coming back into Clonmel. This next section was perhaps the toughest - rough roads and a long climb up to Faugheen and Ahenny with legs that were nigh on dead. Again, more stretches along roads that were more grass than tarmac, plenty of loose gravel, finally to the penultimate control at Fethard, and onto the road to Clonmel. The run in was largely downhill along good roads - we picked up Blorg who had grown tired of sitting around and decided to ride out to meet us which seemed like gratuitous showing off to me but I'm sure he meant well. He was at least good enough to warn that even when you passed the sign for Clonmel there was another little detour of a mere seven or eight kilometres to bring the route up to the 300. We made it in just before dark, at about 8:40 - fourteen and a half hours after we had left.

Demanding though the route was with its seemingly endless procession of rolling hills, it really was a good ride along roads many of which you would never see on a big sportive or from a car. Indeed we saw very little traffic all day, even along the copper coast which I would have expected to be a popular spot for a Saturday drive. The spirit was good all through - hats off to Peter who cracked on with the entire ride, even after wrecking and cutting up his hands early, even though he was local and could have cut off home for an early bath at any time. How he resisted the temptation to disappear on the way out of Carrick I'll never know. After showering everyone met back up for pints and pizza, plenty of stories, told from audaxes past and plots hatched for next year...a 1000 in Ireland, Mille Cymru, Hamburg-Berlin-Koln Hamburg 1500k, a fleche, two full SR series in Ireland next year....Yes, audax can be tough, but it's also a hell of a lot of fun, and the sense of community and camaraderie is something quite special.

And there's going to be a 160 option also. I'm debating whether I quite have the cojones to ride 20k out to Bray, do a 300, ride home again, and get up the following day and go to work...

(NB the ride is on Saturday...I'm working that Sunday. I haven't seen the full 300 route sheet yet but I know it does take you as far as Mount Leinster.)

Oh, and you wouldn't know it from that report, but emty was there too with his new camera so I would expect some pictures to go up in due course.

We were about a hundred yards outside Clonmel when the acid began to take hold....

Mieke did the full series and PBP in 2007 but she claimed she wasn't fit enough to join us on Saturday (possibly after a careful inspection of the weather forecast, although she was crazy enough to come down to the petrol station at 6am to wave us off). The pace is not particularly high - I averaged a little over 25km/h. It's more brisk than fast. The other thing is that there's no great obligation to stay with the group. If its feeling a bit hectic it's often very pleasant to drop off the back and roll along at your own pace for a while. You'll generally catch up at the control points anyway. Given that you've already done the Wicklow 200 and the 160 version of the Mick Byrne and a hatful of other rides this summer, you could certainly give the Dying Sow 300 a crack. I'll just remind you that it was you towing me in at the end of the Martin Earley ride....