A remarkable sight waited for us when we got up on our sixth day, the Twelve Bens glowering in the distance. I had climbed many of them during my childhood and they were looking well in the morning light. Thankfully a strong wind had picked up which kept the midges from the previous night at bay and as if the wind gods were smiling down on us, it would be a tail wind for the majority of the day. A logistical challenge of the race is that there is a ferry crossing, across the Shannon Estuary, from Clare into Kerry at Tarbert which was the target of today’s riding, around 245km riding. The challenge is that the last crossing is at 21:00 and the earliest is at 07:00, so if you just miss the 21:00 crossing, it’s a 10 hour wait till the next which, if your usual night’s sleep consists of 4 hours, is too long to be hanging around when you’re trying to be as fast as possible. So that gave us 15 hours to get there. We were confident we could do it and mentally set our sights on it.
We continued on the Bog Road, having thankfully not been murdered in our sleep by ghosts, heading to Galway. The road was barren, so we only had the supplies from Letterfrack day before, and it wasn’t until 50km into the day’s ride that we found a petrol shop with a deli counter. I devoured a hot breakfast roll, and then faced a conundrum of what replacement to use for my lost chamois cream. I was torn between Sudo Cream and Vaseline, and I went with the Sudo Cream. In hindsight, it was the wrong option as it started to get more and more “sticky” down there with each application, and with hindsight, I should have gone with the Vaseline. Lesson learnt.
After the breakfast stop, we carried onto the main road along Galway Bay that led into Galway city. This was the worst part of the whole race. We were tired and exhausted and as we hit this main stretch of road into Galway, we also hit rush hour and proceeded to be continually almost taken out by motorists passing far too close to us. We were continually on edge for around 50km into Galway. Between the physical and mental strain, we also had to deal with momentarily getting split up, Jack desperately needed a toilet, which a local shop keeper said a church down the road would have, I told Jack that I’d follow him up, but then once I arrived at the church, I couldn’t see any toilets so presumed he was further down the road. I was then very low on battery as my iPhone cable wasn’t connecting or charging and couldn’t get signal to contact Jack, all while it was rush hour on the main road, so for 30 minutes we had lost each other! Jack eventually had continued on and we found each other and continued onto Galway.
A moment I feel terrible about happened on the approach into Galway. A local cyclist came up beside us and recognised that we were doing the TAW, he curiously asked a few questions which we curtly answered before he went on. Soon after we stopped to get off the road for a moment, and the local cyclist had come back around to say that he lived around the corner and if we needed any mechanical assistance, we were more than welcome. Jack and I were in such moods, exhausted and stressed, that we were bluntly rude to this man who was kindly offering us some support, and from our tone, we essentially told him to bugger off. Upon reflection, I still feel terrible about this and wish I could explain the situation to the man, in order to make him understand our rudeness. Maybe he understood, but we’ll never know.
As we cruised into Galway, the route brought us though the city centre and along Eyre Square, the main square in Galway, so for a moment it felt like we weren’t really in an ultra-endurance race, but rather cycling around town. This illusion was soon shattered as we turned out of Galway and proceeded to head toward County Clare and the Burren, an area of unique geological features which I was excited to see have only ever seen pictures of it in my Geography classes. At our next stop, I needed to purchase a new iPhone cable as the one I had just wasn’t working for whatever reason. It was an added stress as having a functioning phone is quite important for keeping in contact with friends and family, checking weather conditions ahead, or listening to music (my main album of choice for the trip was the soundtrack from the musical Hamilton, I could sing it backward for you now!). As we entered Clare, we were passed by a TAW staff car with a photographer leaning out the window snapping some shots. Later they would post a picture of it with the caption, “The Brompton Boys are shooting for the ferry”, which perfectly summed up our mindset for the day. As we came back around the southern part of Galway Bay, we turned back into the tailwind that we had had so far that day and were battling into it for a couple of hours. But as we came around the point of a peninsula, we had that glorious moment that all cyclists dream off, the shifting of a headwind into a tailwind, and then we were shuckin’ diesel!
From that point, we proceeded to have a significant tailwind for the rest of the day as we bombed it for the ferry. By this point we were well into the Burren, and the geological hype was justified, the landscape was eerie in how barren it was, seeming almost like a moonscape. There was minimal vegetation as well, which just added to the barren feel of the place. It was at this point that we started to notice the poor quality of the road surface. Before the race, we hadn’t been expecting great road surfaces throughout the race but had been pleasantly surprised up to that point in the race as to how smooth all the roads were, particularly in Donegal. Clare had so far let the team down and when you’re exhausted, you feel every bump on the road and you develop an irrational hatred towards a county for putting you through this misery. But then we came across some adorable donkeys during a stop and the irrational hatred was forgotten about.
As we proceeded down the Clare coastline, with the Aran Islands out in the distance, we made great progress thanks to the wind. We stopped at a shop in Craggagh to pick up some supplies and we proceeded to have a lovely chat with the owner, which just reminded me of all the nice people we’d met so far on the race and the general openness and friendliness of Irish people. After that nice encounter we carried on through the colourful Doolin (jammed with tourists) and past Doonagore castle. It had been a cloudy day up to this point, but as we climbed our way up to the Cliffs of Moher (also jammed with tourists), the clouds gave way and we were again treated to a gloriously sunny day, as if our swollen hands needed that… On that climb up to the Cliffs of Moher, my knee and saddle-sore woes came to the fore. The Sudo Cream had not been effective in keeping my nether regions lubricated and had instead got very ‘sticky’ down there, so every time I stood up to climb out of the saddle to ease the pressure on my arse, my gooch would initially scream in pain before subsiding, but then my knees would scream in pain from the extra weight on them. So, it was quite a Catch 22, either sit in the saddle and have a stinging gooch, or stand out of the saddle and have aching knees, take your pick.
We flew down from the Cliffs of Moher into Lahinch, a surfing hotspot in Ireland which we didn’t have time to stop for unfortunately, before carrying on along the rest of the Clare coastline to Loop Head. At one point, we were cruising through Doonbeg, of Trump fame, where he had been only a few days beforehand. There were still American flags up on the lampposts and welcome signs. Needless to say, we did not stop there. We had made such good time, thanks to the wind, that we realised we were on track to catch an earlier ferry, so we kept the heads down and kept motoring. As we approached the ferry crossing, a bizarre thing happened when all of a sudden, a large bottle of Fanta landed on the road in front of me! I couldn’t avoid it and rode straight over it, thankfully not coming off the bike or anything, but truly a WTF moment. We had been passing a house, so I can only presume it was some young lads acting the maggot and, had I been less exhausted and we didn’t have a ferry to catch, I may have stopped to lambaste them, but as it was, we just kept going.
We arrived at the ferry terminal with around 20 minutes to spare till the 20:00 crossing, already there were Greg and Anthony, so we proceeded to have a chat about how the race was going. They explained that after they had made it into the second checkpoint (just as Jack and I were leaving), they had proceeded to stay there for the night and overslept in the morning. As a result, they decided to take the short route from the checkpoint to the ferry in order to make it before the last crossing, this meant they would continue doing the short route to the finish, so unfortunately, we likely wouldn't be crossing paths anymore as they would be gaining significant distance over us whenever they took shortcuts. Meanwhile, I had popped into the terminal shop to grab some food and while I was in there, I saw they had coasters with family names and crests on them. Obviously, the middle of an ultra-endurance is an appropriate time to pick up souvenirs and proceed to carry them for another 750km (don’t forget we had hummed and hawed about every weight saving opportunity). I don’t know what I was thinking, again due to being dog-tired. I also forgot about it until I was unpacking my bag at the end of the race, so it was somewhat of a surprise to find out I had purchased it!
As we all made the crossing, we proceeded to have the craic with Anthony and Greg, discussing the race mainly, but also the initial sandwich supply my Mum had set Jack and me off with. The crossing only took 20 minutes, so it was a brief break before we were back on the bike. We had covered 245km already at this point, so we knew we were doing well. But the weather was still warm and sunny, we had a decent tailwind, and our morale was high. So, we resupplied at Tarbert for a final push to go as far as possible before calling it a night. We were treated to yet another fabulous sunset as we rode along the Shannon Estuary. We soon arrived into Ballybunion, were there was a stature of Bill Clinton swinging a golf club, he once played a round of golf there, so naturally, that deserves a statue…
After passing through Ballybunion, we decided to call it a day. We had covered 285km in what was a big day out given energy levels at this point in the race, the wind had helped majorly to get the distance up, and compared to the rest of the days, it was relatively low in meters climbed. We found a suitable field to bivvy in a field and just after we had set up, the dog from the house next door decided it didn’t like us and proceeded to bark for what felt like ages. Obviously when you’re bivvying and stealth camping, you’re trying to be as unnoticeable as possible, so a dog continually barking was a bit of a giveaway. After 30 minutes, it lost interest in us and we settled down for the night.
Distance (km): 284.24
Elevation (m): 2,348
Moving Time (hh:mm:ss): 13:11:53
Elapsed Time (hh:mm:ss): 16:48:25
Moving Time Percentage: 78.53%
Average Speed (km/h): 21.5
Calories: 5,099
Average Heart Rate (bpm): 106
Strava Link: https://www.strava.com/activities/2445490558
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