Ireland 5/20/2013

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Guinness has a new product on the market, “Mid Guinness”.  It has lower alcohol content and fewer calories. I got to try it last night. Thumbs down.  Below photos from dinner last night; great setting and great meal.

 

Every day for the past week, when we started to ride, the temperature has been in the 40’s.  Today it is 56. Well it started at 56.  At the top of Black Rock Mountain it was 46 and the clouds so thick you could barely see.  That’s us in the photo to the right.

There were two optional rides today, a shorter one going east and a longer one going west. We choose the longer, not knowing how difficult it was.  Here is the route.  The first 12 km were brutal. We were in our lowest gear and pedaling as hard as we could.  At one point, Brenda almost bailed on me. But we made it. At the top we rode along a ridge for a while and then had a screaming downhill.  Do we have our stokers to thank for the term “screaming downhill”?  After lunch in Borris, the terrain was moderate. Two photos below: left as we climb and right as we begin descent after the fog clears.

 

We stopped for lunch at Borris and parked our bikes in a courtyard near the pretty bike below.  When we returned, someone had closed the gate, locking our tandems inside.  No Elaine, whinning won’t help.

 

WHO’S RIDING? Alan and Renee Kailer are editors of the DATES newsletter, DATES LINE.  Alan practices law and Renee is a “retired homemaker’.  Alan claims a retired homemaker doesn’t cook dinner during the week.  This fall the Kailer’s are going to Germany for a wedding of a former exchange student.  While there, they’ll ride their tandem down the Mosel and Rhine Rivers.