Limerick routes

cerebus

Hi,

I'm going to be working in Limerick for 6 weeks from Mid-July, just looking for some advice/directions on where and how to get my daily bike fix. I think I'm going to be based somewhere around Corbally, for what it is worth.

Any suggestions for interesting routes?

mossym

what kind of distances you looking for?

cerebus

mossym wrote: »

what kind of distances you looking for?

Something around an hour for weekday morning/evenings - 30-35km maybe? And if you have any, recommendations for 50-100km for days when I have some more time... anything with hills, not too much traffic would be great.

Any loops with multiple distance options (turn left/right at X for 35km, turn at Y for 50km, if you know what I mean) would be cool.

Thanks in advance!

ROK ON

From Corbally, head out the road in the direction of Ardnacrusha. From there you can head toward Killaloe and the lakes, alternatively head toward Castleconnel, Newport and the Silvermines.
Alternatively head across town toward Thomand Pk and take the Old Cratloe road up to the Meelick turnoff and head for Gallows Hill and Woodcock Hill.

As Rok On says the best thing to do is head to Ardnacrusha and from there all of East Clare is open to you.Buy OS map 58 and have a look around.

If you're looking for hills then barely any of the hills around here have roads up them,only forest tracks/trails.Woodcock Hill and Tountinna are the only significant ones with roads up them.There are 4 different ways up Woodcock Hill though,each with varying gradients,one road around the back is 12% I think with one section 20%! So try it from each direction.

As traffic goes I've found the Regional roads in Clare to be surprisingly busy so I use the back roads but these can be badly surfaced in places so you may have to sacrifice one for the other.

I can't really reccomend any route because I vary mine everytime I go out for a cycle but I would recommend cycling through the Lakelands east of Quin which is a fairly scenic area and the area around Lough Derg which is beautiful on a Summers day.

72hundred

I like the cycle from Limerick city up to the golf balls (radar domes). Very nice up there and no cars. And its not a very long cycle in case you don't have much time.

Its got a 300m climb over 4km and nice safe (enough!) decent back into Limerick. Although it does bring you through Moyross so its debatable!

Home:Ballyhoura

Deleted User wrote: »

There are 4 different ways up Woodcock Hill though,each with varying gradients,one road around the back is 12% I think with one section 20%! So try it from each direction.

Could you please map or indicate somehow to me these four different roads up Woodcock hill (especially the "STEEP 20%" one :eek:?) I classify myself as a climber so I'm always looking for hills to train on, although as you said it's fairly flat around here! Thanks in advance! Cheers

mossym

cerebus wrote: »

Something around an hour for weekday morning/evenings - 30-35km maybe? And if you have any, recommendations for 50-100km for days when I have some more time... anything with hills, not too much traffic would be great.

Any loops with multiple distance options (turn left/right at X for 35km, turn at Y for 50km, if you know what I mean) would be cool.

Thanks in advance!

30-35km from corbally...head out towards barry's cross in ardnacrusha. take a right at barrys cross, and stay on that road(very flat) until you hit the o'briensbridge/bridgetown cros, hang a right, go through o'breins bridge, when you get across the bridge take a right at the y junction and it will bring you back out to the main dublin road at daly's cross near castleconnell..hang a right there and you'll be back to limerick...around 30/35k.

for a bit longer, instead of turning right at o'briens bridge, keep going straight, go as far as killaloe(great town!!) and go across the bridge into ballina, turn right, head out of the town, after the town(bout 3/4 mile out, you pass the public park on your right, go up a very short hill, round 2 bends a) there is another road off to the left, take this, head out that road and you'll come to the main limerick dublin road again, hang a right and you're heading back towards limerick, this one is roughly 50K+.

can give you a few more if you want them, not a road cyclist, but know those roads like the back of my hand, and i take the mountina bike out on parts of those spins a bit

ROK ON

72hundred wrote: »

I like the cycle from Limerick city up to the golf balls (radar domes). Very nice up there and no cars. And its not a very long cycle in case you don't have much time.

Its got a 300m climb over 4km and nice safe (enough!) decent back into Limerick. Although it does bring you through Moyross so its debatable!

The Golf Balls are at the top of Gallows Hill.
You dont have to descend in via Moyross.
You could head out via Old Cratloe Road to Cratloe, and escend Woodcock Hill to Meelick, and then take back roads to Parteen and into Corbally.

Did this at Christmas.

mossym

actually, route i mentioned above is pretty flat, you could get off the dublin road for a bit and do a bit of climbing up towards newport direction..

cerebus

Thanks for all the suggestions - looking forward to trying them out.

Home:Ballyhoura

Home:Ballyhoura wrote:

Could you please map or indicate somehow to me these four different roads up Woodcock hill (especially the "STEEP 20%" one :eek:?) I classify myself as a climber so I'm always looking for hills to train on, although as you said it's fairly flat around here! Thanks in advance! Cheers

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=52.716019,-8.735247&spn=0.028492,0.066175&z=14

I'll try and explain as best as I can

The first way up Woodcock Hill is the one coming from the east side i.e the Moyross one! The other 3 all join together at Gallows Hill (the crossroads on the map) and follow the same road to the top. The west road is gradual enough and pretty well surfaced,this is the one that goes up from Cratloe Village passing the main entrance to Cratloe Woods.The south road is fairly narrow and badly surfaced but is a fair bit steeper in places.

The north road is the fun one! It's only 1km or so from the bottom crossroads to the top one but it averages 12% the whole way.I'd recommend a mountain bike for it as you'd get fairly little grip with road tyres but it's probably possible on a road bike(with a lot of effort.) I can barely manage this in the lowest gear on my mtb and it usually takes me 8-9 minutes to do from crossroad to crossroad but admittedly I am pretty unfit! Good luck with it anyway,enjoy the climb!

mossym

you don't have to come past moyross for the east one, if you go through parteen and up through meelick you can avoid moyross completely, as rok on said

michaelm

One of the great cycles in the area is the tour of Lough Derg. From Limerick head to Killaloe, from here you can decide to go either clockwise or anticlockwise around the lake - I would recommend the former. The total distance around the lake is 115Km. There are just 2 climbs of note the first in Ogonelloe after about 10K and the second, Portroe after 95K. The route is well signposted as the Lakeshore Drive.

Also if you are interested in other cycles in this region you can download a map at www.northtippcycling.com

mossym

if starting from limerick ogenolloe is a lot more than 10k, killaloe is more than 10k from limerick, are your distances there using killaloe as a start point?

michaelm

apologies yes, distances are based on starting and finishing in Killaloe.

GearoidP

If you're ever thinking of cycling from Limerick to Cork, I'd recommend this route. Lovely back roads and a couple of nice hills.

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=3Tzut&page_id=113330&v=1k

stevemcf

Hi,
This is great, got some new routes now!
Steve