Cycling the Slieve Bloom Way

Has anyone cycled the Slieve Bloom way or even parts of it. Most of it is off the beaten track and Im hoping to do this, going to buy a new mountain bike too and it will be mainly for this kind of thing so any advice on
A) Getting a new bike for this kind of thing
Cycling the Slieve Bloom way

AlanD

Deleted User wrote:

Has anyone cycled the Slieve Bloom way or even parts of it. Most of it is off the beaten track and Im hoping to do this, going to buy a new mountain bike too and it will be mainly for this kind of thing so any advice on
A) Getting a new bike for this kind of thing
Cycling the Slieve Bloom way

not sure if you know this or not, but a lot of the Slieve Bloom Way is not on cycleable tracks. Many miles of it cross deep heather over spongy bog.

I don't know too much about the Slieve Bloom way but going by other waymarked walks in Ireland (East Clare,Kerry and Wicklow ways) most of it will be cyclable(presuming you're not new to mountain biking).There will be plenty of boggy patches where you will have to push/carry the bike but if the way is well maintained there should be sleepers over the bog which present a nice little challenge,lose your balance and you're face first in the bog If however this is your first attempt at mountain biking I'd advise starting out on something easier.Many of these ways can have steep boulder-strewn descents or some fairly technical singletrack,I'd wait a month or 2 until you have the hang of things to give this a go.Good luck with it.

AlanD

AlanD wrote:

not sure if you know this or not, but a lot of the Slieve Bloom Way is not on cycleable tracks. Many miles of it cross deep heather over spongy bog.

I have hiked it a few times, I have my own route now altered from the marked way which is a lot better but may be bits where the bikes will need to be carried - depending on the past rainfall - but they should be down to a minimum!

Im totally new to mountain biking.