After a cold night with heavy rain, I woke up shivering again. I felt stiff and sore, but I had been woken up at one point during the night by a yelp from Jack when his knee had locked up in the night, so I knew he was feeling worse. It wasn’t raining when we woke up at 05:00, but when I consulted the rain radar, I was informed that there was heavy rain due in 9 minutes! So I shouted to Jack to get up and packed pronto as we were about to get lashed on. After a mad dash of stuffing soaking sleeping equipment back into our dry bags (even our down sleeping bags were now soaked due to condensation inside our bivvy bags from the cold nights), the rain inevitably came and we decided to cheekily use the campsite facilities, initially the bathrooms, but then also the kitchen area as we couldn’t face going out into the cold, heavy rain at that moment in time. As we sat in the kitchen, we decided to do the dishonourable deed and pilfered a couple of tea bags teabags from the campsite’s kitchen and make some tea to warm us up. It got even worse when we nicked some milk from somebody’s stash. While in hindsight it was poor form, we were so cold and wet we thought that it would be what the owners would want.
With a water bottle’s worth of tea consumed and our bellies warmed up, we set off into the rain. It had obviously rained substantially overnight as the roads were very wet and the day was still very dull, in complete contrast to the previous day’s sunshine. We continued circumnavigating Achill Island, which included an out and back section over to Keem Bay on the far side of the island, which is a cosy little beach where we ran into another rider, Séamus, who took a picture of us, and we chatted for a bit. We would end up bumping into one another throughout the rest of the race. As we carried on around Achill, the weather started to clear up and it began turning into a lovely day and soon we arrived back at the bridge onto Achill Island and we stopped to feast at the Supervalu shop there. As we sat and ate, we say a few riders cross the bridge and begin their own circumnavigation of the Island, which was quite satisfying for us having already done it. When we left the island, we swung around the other side of the Corraun Peninsula and were treated with the sensational sight of the sun beaming down on Clew Bay with its many islands (365 according to tradition, one for every day of the year).
It was at this point I noticed my hands, and Jack’s hands were very swollen, but thankfully not sore. The sunburn that we had received over the first few days was evidently quite severe. We hadn’t packed any sun cream (against the wishes of my Mum, I insisted that it was a problem I would welcome) so we proceeded to purchase some at the next shop to keep our chubby hands from getting worse. We had also developed some sharp facial tan lines caused by our helmet straps and caps. My watch tan line was also comical. We came along the top of Clew Bay before stopping for some sustenance and a toilet break at a Centra. Given the sun was shining and it was warm, I thought I’d have an ice cream, sit in the sun and dry out my feet a bit while Jack was in the bathroom. I was all set up when a man approached me for a chat about the Bromptons. It was not what I wanted at that very moment. I know that since Jack and I were doing the TAW on Bromptons that people would be more curious and likely to ask us questions due to the peculiar nature of them, and I tried to be as open and friendly to those people, but at that moment, I was seething inside. I was exhausted and just wanted to enjoy my ice cream in piece, but this man proceed to ask me every question possible about Bromptons and at one point was talking about his Nephew who used to live in London, because that was relevant apparently. By the time he’d finished, I had eaten my ice cream, Jack was done and ready to go, and I never got my moment in the sun.
After my sabotaged chill time, we came back onto the Great Western Greenway and would follow it all the way to Westport. While it was a nice break to be off country roads and on a designated bikeway, it did result in us not getting to fully see Clew Bay’s many islands as we were a bit away from the coastline, which was unfortunate, but such was life. As we came through Westport, we followed the coast on the south of Clew bay and up past Croagh Patrick, a famous pilgrimage mountain where people often climb up it bare foot. We soon turned away from the bay and down through Doo Lough and Dephi before coming onto Killary Fjord. The landscape was becoming more epic now with mountains rearing up either side of us as we approached the Twelve Bens of Connemara. As we came onto Killary Fjord, we could see the second checkpoint of the race on the other side of the fjord. It was in an adventure centre (where I had spent a long weekend with my secondary school 12-years before) and offered warm food, a shower, and a bed for the night. As we came around the end of the fjord and arrived at checkpoint, we were greeted by a gaggle of youths (on a trip similar to the one I had done so long ago). At this point it was around 17:30 and we had only covered 165km. So, we had the choice of stopping early, resting and sleeping in a bed for a night, or get some grub, maybe a shower and plough on. We decided on the latter as we were both feeling strong, as much as one can after four and half days of riding and wanted to reach our minimum daily distance of 235km. At this point in the day, there weren’t any clouds in the sky and strong warm breeze blowing, so we took out all our sodden sleeping gear and laid it out on the grass in front of the adventure centre, tying it to our bikes, to dry it as best it could.
After chatting to the race staff and getting our brevet cards stamped, we had our first shower after 1,200km of riding. While they weren’t particularly warm and there wasn’t any soap it was, nevertheless, exquisite to wash as best we could. I also decided to rinse my bib short, after much sweat and chamois cream application, thinking that since it was warm and sunny out, it would dry as I rode. We then proceed to eat some warm veggie pasties that were provided by the race staff and have a chat with a few other riders who were there at the same time and Adrian, the race organiser. He was talking about the weather and how sublime it had been thus far, even dubbing the route the Mild Atlantic Way, which was very appropriate. We stocked up on what food supplies were offered by the race staff and went down to our gear to pack it up and get going, we had been stopped for about two hours and were keen to make the most of the good weather and tail wind that was now blowing. Our sleeping gear had dried completely in the short time there which was brilliant and mentally encouraging as it was almost like starting with fresh gear for the second half of the race (we had crossed the half way marker just before Killary Fjord), the end was somewhat in sight!
The next section of the ride was the most unforgettable for me. As we left the adventure centre, just as Greg and Anthony, the pair we came across on the second day, arrived, we skirted around the edge of the Twelve Bens on the coastline. Having spent all of my childhood summers just down the road, I knew the area exceptionally well, due to the numerous excursion we had made back in the day. And with the sun beaming down, bellies full and all our gear dry, spirits couldn’t have been higher. As we rode around the coastline, I regaled Jack of various stories (which I sure he was sick of soon enough) of my childhood. We stop in Letterfrack to load up on provisions for the night and the next morning and reinvigorated our nether regions with chamois cream. Just as the sun was setting, dramatically yet again, we approached Claddaghduff, the area where my childhoods had been spent. We passed Sweeney’s, which was the area’s local shop/bar/post office/petrol station (where we had frequented as children looking for treats), Omey Island (a tidal island that we used to adventure around), and then eventually Acton’s Campsite, where I had spent an estimated 1.5 years of my life in a caravan on the sea front over the years. It was quite surreal to look down on it as we cycled by and recall my childhood, while simultaneously creating this new substantial moment in my life, both happening side by side. We had stopped so I could grab a picture of the campsite to show my Mum and I decided some additional chamois cream was required, maybe given the bib chamois had been rinsed and needed relaying of cream. At this point, and much to my horror, I discovered I had misplaced it. After double checking I thought back to when I had last used it, which was in Letterfrack, and had a vivid memory of placing it on a wall beside my bike as I had rearranging my bag to fit my recently purchased provisions. I wasn’t too annoyed at the time, but towards the end of the race, I would come to really regret the chamois cream’s absence.
Carrying on from Acton’s Campsite, we followed Streamstown Bay (whose quarry, I had recently found out, provided the Connemara marble used in the Museum Building in Trinity College Dublin, where I had had many lectures as a student) inland and around onto Sky Road, a picturesque loop following the Kingstown peninsula, with great views, but unfortunately at this point, we could only see the silhouettes of the islands in the surrounding coastal area as it was getting so dark. It was 23:00, and we had only covered 224km, but as we were feeling good, we pushed on back through Clifden, where again we had spent a lot of time as children, and onto the isolated and eerie Bog Road (that’s the actual name of the road) that led to Roundstone (where my Mum had spent all her childhood summers). On the road we had one of the strangest incidents of the race. This road goes right through the middle of a bog where nobody lives and when we were about half way through it (about 10km), I stopped for a pee on the side of the road, we were getting going again, when we saw the reflection of a high-vis jacket in the distance. Jack had seen it while I was peeing, and thought it was another TAW rider, but as we got closer, it turned out to be a man, on his own, standing and looking out over the bog. This was unusual, we were in the middle of nowhere. As we went by, he saw us and shouted, “Grand day for it lads!”. Needless to say, we were kind of freaked out and decided to put quite a few kilometres between us and him before we setup our (dry!) bivvies for the night. We spoke about the incident after the race and did some research, there’s no houses or establishments on the Bog Road, so what was this guy doing at 12pm, standing on his own in the middle of nowhere, on a Monday night? It also turns out that some locals think the Bog Road is haunted by the owners of a Half-Way House, that used to exist, who murdered lonely travellers. At the time, we thought it weird, but in hindsight…
We carried on for another 30 minutes (in order to get us away from the madman) before finding a suitable spot to set up our bivvies. As we were in the middle of a bog, midges turned out to be a nuisance (we had heard stories from the previous edition of the TAW that midges could ruin a night’s sleep), I had my bike light shining on my bivvy as I set it up and once I had sealed myself in, I found it full of midges. I then proceeded to spend the next 15 minutes crushing them against my bivvy until I thought the issue resolved and drifted off immediately to sleep.
Distance (km): 242.1
Elevation (m): 2,571
Moving Time (hh:mm:ss): 12:20:31
Elapsed Time (hh:mm:ss): 17:36:09
Moving Time Percentage: 70.11%
Average Speed (km/h): 19.6
Calories: 5,331
Average Heart Rate (bpm): 112
Strava Link: https://www.strava.com/activities/2440272648
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