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Royal Canal on a Road Bike
Comments
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Looked at the favourable forecast this morning and decided to head west to Mullingar from home near Cross Guns. Picked up the canal at Confey and had a very pleasant downwind spin with only the odd stop for photos. I was a bit apprehensive about the state of the gravelled stretches given the recent weather but, other than a few shallow pools, it was fine. Made it to Mullingar station with enough time to pick up a well deserved chicken wrap in Chocolate Brown before catching the 3 o'clock train home. Happy to see Furey's open (even though I didn't drop in) and Mary Lynch's new colour scheme is very classy!
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3 of us did the Royal Canal 200 Audax as a permanent yesterday, the name is a little deceiving as about 56km is on the Old Rail Trail to Moate and back, we started/finished at Mary Lynches. I was a bit concerned that the surface might be poor in places given the recent weather and the fact that the last time I was up that way ( a couple of years ago) there was a good bit of deterioration in places. As it turned out it was fine, 2 of us were on road bikes, me with 32mm GP5000s and Brian on 28s while the other chap was on his Diverge with pathfinder pros, none of us had any hassle.
It was good to see areas being resurfaced with a new layer of grit, hopefully the rest of it will be done in due course, there are some sections with mini potholes that need watching for but you can still pick a safe path through.
We did a 2 and a half stop ride, the first 2 were planned, coffee and a sambo in Streamstown then soup in The Richmond Inn in Cloondara, the half came when Brian punctured right outside a Maxol in the centre of Mullingar so we had a late coffee to warm us up for the last 10km out to the van.
Great to get a 200km Audax in with no traffic to worry about, I think we had to give way to one car on one of the shared spaces and apart from that we had no interaction with traffic.
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Tried the Deep Sinking to see if the new surfacing goes all the way from Castleknock to Porterstown Road and it does😊 It’s not perfect and still quite narrow but I had no problems on a road bike with 25mm tyres. It's a pretty similar surface to the next section west to Clonsilla Station.
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Headed out west along the Royal again today. The barrier just after Castleknock station is an odd one where you can lift the handlebars over easy enough on a road bike but that would be impossible on a cargo bike and panniers would have to be removed if touring.
After passing under the railway bridge at the far end of the Deep Sinking near Hansfield, I took to the quiet roads as far as Confey as I wasn't sure how rough or muddy the towpath would be. Went through the delightfully named Passifyoucan on the way.
At Kilcock I decided to head cross-country to Straffan before joining the Grand Canal at Ardclough and heading back home that way. In general, it seemed more boring than the Royal with long straight sections and fewer towns. Still a lot better than dodging traffic on the roads. A 74k round trip from Harts Corner in perfect conditions.
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