LEJOG via Wild Atlantic Way

[trailplanner]

Experiences of riding from LE to JOG via Ireland and the Wild Atlantic Way and Hebridean Way on the Western Isles

https://trailplanner.co.uk/cycling/atlantic-coast/
https://trailplanner.co.uk/cycling/atlantic-coast/ev1-ireland/
https://trailplanner.co.uk/cycling/atlantic-coast/ncn-780-hebridean-way/

I'm looking for other coastal routes and plan to cycle Grand Tour de Manche (around English Channel) using NCN2 and Eurovelo4.  Anyone else tried this?

[Andre Jute]

Thank you for a wonderful report. I live on the Wild Atlantic Way, but new eyes see anew.

The finger raised off the steering wheel is a common greeting in the Irish lanes; it is polite to nod or smile back or raise a finger off the handlebar. It is also polite to greet strangers, even women walking alone out in the countryside. And if the police stop when they find you under a signpost, they're not being aggressive; it is just in their upbringing to offer help with directions -- the older sergeants can still remember when every policeman at a country station was supposed to have his own bicycle to chase sheep thieves.

Small tip: Beara, not Beera, though admittedly they are easily mistaken for each other unless one speaks with special emphasis on the pauses: bee-eh-rah.

[trailplanner]

Thanks Andre,  Beara corrected.

More reason to visit Ireland again to improve my pronunciation and spelling.  There are so many nooks and crannies still to explore on the WAW.

[jags]

sounds like you had a blast in Ireland .me and bikepacker done that Healy pass tough climb for sure i though to the top i'd never get  .
super write up thanks for sharing .

jags
(anto)

[ridgeback63]

Thanks for that,it was a really interesting read,I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[geocycle]

Very nice write up. How many days were you in Ireland?

I’ve done the french part of the tour de manche. Lovely ride with a lot of off-road rail tracks. I got ferries from Poole to Cherbourg and back from Roscoff to Plymouth.

[jags]

can i ask how much did that trip cost you just curious,
b@b in Ireland are expensive enough 45euro or there about's,  hostal's 7 euro to 20, campsites 9 euro to 20 .
cheers

Anto

[trailplanner]

Cost wise?  I camped mostly and used hostels say 2-3 times a week.  I was expecting Ireland to be expensive vs UK sterling, but it was not too bad.

No B&B or hotels used except one I recall which gave be a good rate €20, hostels ~ €10 - €20 and campsite < €10 generally, with possibilities to wild camp at times.  Food costs neutral (I'd eat at home and cooked myself as much as I could) and ferry cost ok for a passenger and free bike.  Ferry to Islay was the most expensive.  £60 I think.

I was in Ireland just over 3 weeks.  So maybe €20-30 per day?

New chain €30 at Halfords and one set of brake blocks.  The Thorn Sherpa carried the load superbly and handled well down the steep descents, but it is like pushing a 6x4' plasterboard sideways into wind with the Ortliebs fitted.  I must streamline.

[jags]

not to bad so
i know all about a loaded sherpa i toured a fair bit of Ireland on one i now ride the Audax find it way better lighter faster  way better on hills,mind you the sherpa is a great bike built like a tank  but with my bad backi found it hard going especially on hills.

anto.

[John Saxby]

Super story and photos, trail--thanks!  For some time now, I've been mulling (sorry--bad pun fully intended) over a tour through parts of the Celtic fringe of Europe, and your tale is a great help, full of suggestions and enticing views. I was especially encouraged by the amount of decent weather you enjoyed.  It will probably be some time before I get my own trek organized, but your account nudges me along.

Cheers,  John

[jags]

it's all lovely when the sun shines.weather here at the moment is desperate,i  wouldn't put a shovel out it's that bad.  (if i had a shovel )

[Andre Jute]

Super story and photos, trail--thanks!  For some time now, I've been mulling (sorry--bad pun fully intended) over a tour through parts of the Celtic fringe of Europe, and your tale is a great help, full of suggestions and enticing views. I was especially encouraged by the amount of decent weather you enjoyed.  It will probably be some time before I get my own trek organized, but your account nudges me along.

Pay close attention to what Jags says about the weather in Ireland; he's not just talking for the sake of a good moan. The main summer can be surprisingly sunny, and in odd years, including this one, the summer can stretch all the way into October, but you can't count on it. I always used to advise visitors, in the days when we had lots of visitors every year, not to come after the end of September. One mate, delayed by urgent work he did for Médecins Sans Frontières in Africa, came in mid-October and would have been blown over the Cliffs of Moher if I hadn't grabbed his collar. I dined out on the tale of how I caught him only to save my cashmere Burberry overcoat. This was only minutes after my child, a toddler then, was blown over in the parking lot and not caught by us before he was tumbled about thirty feet by that wind. Sometimes I think that the wind is more of a curse in Ireland than the rain, which is often very gentle, more a persistent drizzle than real rain, and then referred to as "a soft day"; this year constant high winds ruined the early part of the summer for cyclists in West Cork.

[jags]

Crackin summer Andre I hate winter give me nice sunny WEATHER anytime.

[John Saxby]

Thanks, Andre. Forewarned is forearmed.  If I make the tour I'm considering, I'll probably aim for May, maybe early June.  The one time I visited The Holy Ground, some 40-plus years ago, the weather was benign, though it was late Feb., as I recall.

I enjoyed Eric Newby's Round Ireland in Low Gear, a funny tale and a very good read, but he made his trip in bits and pieces between September and March, as I recall, and I remember saying to myself as he began, "He must be bloody mad."  In the same vein, early in Thomas Flanagan's splendid book on the '98, "The Year of The French", he starts a paragraph with this sentence, "It was one of those days on the West Coast of Ireland when the whole world seemed to have turned to water."

Gentle rain is OK; I don't much like cool-and-humid, and don't like a cold rain at all.

Cheers,  John 

[trailplanner]

Timing wise I would choose May/June or Sept/early Oct - definitely before the tourist hoards come out in camper vans and cars

Weather wise I heard that 1 in 12 days are rain, the day I heard that it rained continuously in Scotland for 2 weeks!!  I'd balance the risk of bad weather against lower traffic and available hostels. May in Scotland is surprisingly busier than July/Aug - something to do with fear of midges and cleggies.  The crowds of people are different too.  May/June are students and older - newly weds or nearly dead.

jags - I plan to sell my racing bike and stuff languishing in the loft to fund a drop bar/gravel/adventure bike - thorn mercury or shand stoater like config.  Definitely steel and with much much lighter bikepacker/pannier hybrid luggage to improve aerodynamics.  I'd use Rohloff to give me the gear range for an old bloke, if affordable.  This would complement the slower, relax more comfortable Sherpa, which is better suited to rougher conditions. 

John - I read Eric Newby too.  Great book. Some areas of Ireland are still like that.