What the hell? I mean, it's odd enough to sneak out at 7am, wending my way down the hill in lycra, an ungodly hour to be going anywhere. So imagine my surprise to find the boardwalk at the Dunbrody famine ship thronged with Japanese tourists. I mean, whats the Japanese for "get out of my way, I need to take a selfie!" anyway? It was a mutual thing in the end. They stared at me like I was a lunatic cyclist at 7am cycling in the fog, I stared at them as if they were camera toting tourists on a whirlwind tour of...New Ross.
But I got my selfie, thinking it was gonna be a weird day. My plan was to ride from sea level to the highest point in the province. So I needed a selfie with the masts in the background, the intention being to book-end it with a t.v. mast selfie up on mt Leinster. 55 mile round trip. Easy peasy...eh...japanesy?
Japanese tourists were the least of my worries.
I scooted along, finally feeling relaxed for the first time in a couple of months. It was warm. Shorts and short sleeves after 7 in the morning is normally reserved for Marbella. I assumed it would be cold 795 metres higher. Doh!
Just like a cheap spaghetti western I encountered omens. A road-kill cat that seemed to have been annihilated from four different directions. He didn't look happy. He'd have made a fine imitation lion-skin rug for a sitting room.
A texting driver on my side of the road.
A buzzard circled near the mountain. I hoped it was looking for a non-lycra-clad breakfast. From down in the valley it's wingspan resembled a hang-glider from hell.
I wound my way to the lower slopes and smiled. The mountain was shrouded in mist. I wouldn't be able to see the scale of the leviathan I'd chosen to assault. Mt Leinster climbs in a series of punishing ramps. The narrow road clings to the mountain side, it's sheer nastiness visible all the way on a clear day. Not today.
I passed broken glass at the bottom. A vodka bottle. Huzzar. Wasn't 'huzzah!' a celebration first exclaimed in Shakespeare's time? Why am I thinking about this anyway? Altitude. Must be kicking in. Or perhaps it's this bit of road, the Dying Sow? Nothing like a stretch of asphalt named like that to concentrate the mind!
And up I went defying gravity, for beer bellies are meant to stay at sea level. And then there was a bunch of horses on the road. Wild ones, calling the Blackstairs their home. Well, obviously they can't speak so they don't actually call anything, well... anything. They parted to let me on up the hillside. One of them looked at me pitifully and shook his head. "Poor f##ker" I imagine he snickered in pony dialect.
And then I arrived at the gates of hell. The private road to the summit and destiny. A walker was 100 metres up the road and disappearing into thick mist. I followed. It took me 6 minutes to catch him. I was in my lowest gear almost immediately. That was a shock. As was the 19% gradient reading on the computer. That's steeper than any learning curve I've encountered! On passing the walker I discovered he had seen two decades more than me. We shared a quip about heavy breathing that in hindsight should have been accompanied by duelling banjoes and a hog roast. Maybe thats why the Dying Sow died? My pace quickened.
Around the only serious bend halfway up, the heat kicked in. I was at 2000 feet and I was blinded by sweat, my hands couldn't grip the 'bars and the tar under my wheels was soft! 18 degrees below the summit. I put my foot down to clear my eyes, remembered the walker behind me, and pushed on again. And the summit was closer than I thought, hidden in a humid fog.
Mt Leinster's summit is an anti-climax. You touch the galvanised gates, take a picture, and descend. Apart from a family of walkers milling around, it's lonely. Not far off 3000ft up, yet celebration amounts to a slowing of the thumping in your chest and a realisation that you've sweated so much you are about to freeze.
A couple of white knuckle minutes warms you instantly. Then you pass the horses again and wink, bunnyhop the huzzar bottle, outrun the buzzard coasting the thermals above you and, with the wind at your back you arrive almost elegantly back where you started, in time to bid 'sayonara' to your animated, camera-swinging Japanese buddies....
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