The
next morning, we had a fabulous breakfast with croissants from
the shop below our B&B. We needed a good meal before our
scheduled ride of the day. After noticing how happy it made
John to climb passes, Some of us are apparently
easily pleased ! I looked at the map and suggested a
route over 4 passes. First, we would climb the Coomakesta Pass
on the Ring of Kerry, and then pass through Waterville, where
we would leave the Ring and go inland across the Ballaghisheen
Pass, which would bring us up to the Ballaghbeama Gap and finish
up on the Gap of Dunloe. John was thrilled, 4 big climbs and
he promised I would finally experience nice rough roads on the
Gap of Dunloe.
For the statistics gatherers
amongst you, most of the "big" climbs in Ireland rarely
go above 1500 feet / 500 metres, often less. To the best of
my knowledge, the highest a road goes is 2600 feet (800 m),
and that's one way up to a TV transmitter.
Well,
we made it up the first pass, where we met a vanload full of
Australian tourists. I wanted to ask them the same question
many had asked us. Why, when it's warm and summery in Oz right
now, were they touring around cold wet Ireland. But the view,
labeled the best in Ireland, by a sign in front of an Inn, answered
all our questions. I was really amazed that we were having yet
another cloudless day. It was cold, but I was prepared for that.
And the lack of cloud cover gave every climb an absolutely awesome
view as a reward.
We headed down into Cahersiveen, where we stopped for lunch.
I really was getting hooked on salmon, and my salmon on brown
bread sandwich was delicious. We had a little mechanical problem
that turned out to be a twisted front derailleur. It took a
few miles before we finally fixed the problem correctly, but
then we sailed on quietly up the Ballaghisheen Pass. Actually
it wasn't too quiet, as we were chatting away about everything.
The road became a bit steeper, and we were alternating standing
and sitting, and had just stood, when suddenly we were spinning
wildly and going nowhere. John managed to unclip and hold us
steady while I hopped off to survey the damage. I walked back
a few feet and picked up the two pieces of our broken 19T cog.
This made my day, and
I had to get a picture !
We
looked around for the creek we were riding up, but it was only
in our minds. We tried using the 17, but it also began to slip.
However, this is one of those cases where
more isn't necessarily better and the quality of my day didn't
suddenly improve !
We took a look at the map, and decided that we must be close
to the top, and began to walk. It was then that I questioned
the wisdom of touring in the winter, on desolate mountain roads.
I imagined someone finding our frozen bodies huddled together
with our little souvenir sheep sometime next spring.
Fortunately the top was only about a half a mile away, and
after a few more pictures, and adding more clothes, we remounted
and headed down. The 12 and 13 tooth cogs were threaded on so
I figured we had those and we would use the 15 until it gave
out. This gave us 6-9 usable gears, and we continued on with
those. We rechecked the map, and decided to head into Killorglin,
and hoped to either find a bike shop or get a ride to Killarney
the next day. We took our time going in, stopping lots for pictures
and to enjoy the sunset behind us and the moon rising in front
of us. It wasn't full , but was getting very close, and was
just spectacular. We eventually reached the town and found a
bike shop, that just happened to have a Regina freewheel removal
tool, one of which I had carelessly left at home, and a 6 speed
Hyperglide freewheel. No seven speeds, but who was going to
be picky.
The
only problem was this new freewheel was a 14-32, where we were
discarding a 12-24. Why is this a problem? Well John saw it
as a challenge to find a hill worthy of these low gears!
We found a guest house that evening, complete with a restaurant
and bar. We again had a delicious meal, and the entertainment
was supplied by the next table over. Four French hunters were
on their nth bottle of wine and were definitely enjoying their
evening. I started to worry that the whole place might burn
down as they lit their cigarettes with flaming napkins set afire
from the candle on the table.
