Bikepacking in Ireland

[Big Jim Mac]

I see lots of stories about bike packing trips in Scotland and England, but nothing about bike packing in Ireland. Anyone know of a good route on the west side?

[Pirahna]

There is so little off road riding in Ireland you'll need to plan a road trip. All land is privately owned, there will be minimal to no wild camping opportunities, there are also very few campsites.

My parents live in the west of Ireland, I'll be out there next week in fact, they live just outside Roscommon if you want to look on map. I'ts a landscape of small fields, dry stone walls and bogs. The coast is rugged and scenic. It's wet, that's why it's so green. The weather is prevailing westerly, so Atlantic storms, winds etc keep rolling in.

Much of the land is owned by small farmers who live very close by, if you wild camp you'll probably get caught and asked to leave. The law as it currently stands means that if anything happens to you the land owner is responsible which is why you won't be wanted. There really is nowhere to use a mountain bike. There are some organised races and a couple of small trail centres, I think there's one in the North and one close to Dublin, and that's it. The climate is bit drier in the south and the east, it's still wet though.

It's place that's worth visiting though, just on a road bike with mudguards (fenders). Campsites are very few so plan on staying in hotels or B&B's. It's not cheap either. Did I mention it's wet?

[Big Jim Mac]

Thanks for the post, that might explain the lack of routes! I had heard there wasn't much in the way of mountain biking there but thought there would at least be places to camp. I've been considering one of the tours where you ride from one B&B to the next, but would love to do it on my own agenda. Are drivers bike friendly in Ireland?

[Lentamentalisk]

I'm very curious about this too. I'm planning a trip there next year. It isn't a "bikepacking" trip or even a "bike touring" trip. The idea is to travel from town to town, by bike, but with the focus being on the towns, not so much on the biking. But I've got all the same questions.

How are the drivers in regards to cyclists?
Is there a good way of finding less heavily trafficked roads?
What towns do I absolutely need to visit?

[MartinFarrent]

Why not bikepack for a few days in Wales, then cross over by ferry and stick to roads in Ireland? Riding a mountain bike on the road isn't all that awful.

[Pirahna]

How are the drivers in regards to cyclists? - Same as everywhere else really, a few good drivers, a few bad ones with everyone else somewhere in between.

Is there a good way of finding less heavily trafficked roads? - Google. There is plenty of stuff about touring in Ireland.

What towns do I absolutely need to visit? - Even though I've been visiting Ireland since I was born (I'm 53), visits have always been to family so I've been restricted to the West. Galway is definitely worth a visit but that's about the limit of my knowledge I'm afraid.

[Big Jim Mac]

This is the company I was thinking about using: http://www.cyclewest.com/ireland-bike-tours/

They do a self-guided tour and shuttle your stuff between overnight stays. Seems like I could do it cheaper on my own with some bike bags though. I really want to start in Limerick since that is where my family came from.

[Big Jim Mac]

Apparently there are mountain biking trails in Ireland now, don't think these would work for bike camping or even touring but might be a nice side trip if I shipped the Yeti ARC over. http://www.discoverireland.ie/Activities-Adventure/ballinastoe-mountain-bike-trail/91460

[Bob]

Like motorists the world over really, mostly OK but the occasional **** (insert favourite term of abuse). Once you get away from the main cities and larger towns it's pretty pleasant really. As an aside, Dublin is a really nice city to visit. I don't do "urban" but Dublin is nice.

Many years ago when we lived in North Wales we got the ferry from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire (say it like Dun Leery) headed over to the West Coast (via train) then rode down the coast from Galway to Killarney. It poured down every day! And I mean poured, we'd get to four foot deep torrents across the main road and have to detour miles inland to get round them. The people are great and really helpful. The pubs are great: "When do you close?" "That'll be September!", if you like Guinness you'll be in heaven. We just found B&B at whichever town we decided to stop at, there's usually a tourist information shop or booth with listings in the window.

There weren't many bike shops around and most places really only dealt with mountain bikes as they hired them out and they dealt with the poor road surfaces better. It might be a bit more road orientated these days, there have been a few Ireland articles in road biking magazines.

[Carawaystick]

There are plenty of places to wild camp in Ireland, but they're up high on open mountain or in Forestry, or in National parks. As mentioned upthread, all land is owned, but a lot of mountains land is commonage. Coillte, the national forestry company tolerate a small overnight camp in most of their forests, except in Deer stalking season, just after New Year

There's probably not a lot of off road routes in Ireland, We've made public roads of a lot of roads which would remain tracks or trails in other places, but that does mean there are lots of little narow roads (Boreens) to travel through Ireland, many with a strip of vegetation growing in the middle.

Drivers are variable as mentioned. If you were nervous, you could do worse than travel through Northern Ireland, where there is a leap in politeness of drivers, slowing and calmly waiting to safely overtake compared to much of the rest of the place.

There's MTB trails in Ticknock, a few km south of Dublin,  Ballinastoe, near Roundwood in Wicklow, Ballyhoura in Limerick, Derroura in Connemara, Co Galway, and Rostrevor, Co Down
There's unofficial trails around too, use the heatmap feature in strava to see where.

Longer distance off road routes include The 2 Main canals from Dublin, the Royal Canal and the Grand Canal.
The Barrow Navigation from the Grand Canal down the barrow river
The Mullingar Athlone Greenway, 40km smooth tarmac route on an old rail line, from the Royal canal
The Great Western Greenway is 35-40 km on gravel in Mayo

Google isn't too bad for route finding, but it won't route on the off road greenways, and might skip boreens, for bigger&busier roads. I use openstreetmap.org to check and see the latest on roads- its good for checking routes where there's new motorways like the M11 dead end at Rathnew Google shows, or to see if theres a path to avoid a dead end.

There's a lot more road bikes these days as there's a govt scheme to give a tax rebate to purchase a new bike, so I'd imagine you'ld get enough to get a bike shop in most towns with some road bike kit, dunno if you'ld be able to hire them though.

The west of Ireland probably has the best scenery and best places to see, but the least cycling infrastructure
Westport is a great town, Pretty, scenic and good Fun, near the Mayo greenway
Galway is good craic
West clare is pretty and the small towns there are good craic too. Doolin is the only place I know that has camping there

Kerry has several peninsulas, Dingle, the Ring of Kerry, Beara(half in Cork) each of which have places to take your breath away, but they are sharp to milk tourists
West Cork is like Kerry, only less commercial,

Wicklow has loads of forestry roads, and the wicklow way, which you can cycle on a rugged bike most of the way if you are carefull of the walkers, and during the week they' are few and far between.

[Big Jim Mac]

Thanks for the comments, still want to ride Ireland, just might change my plans somewhat. Not against those little roads, sounds like fun.

[GregMay]

There is so little off road riding in Ireland you'll need to plan a road trip. All land is privately owned, there will be minimal to no wild camping opportunities, there are also very few campsites.

I'm going to call BS on that. There is loads of riding in the country, not all land is privately owned, there are lots of campsites, you can wild camp sundown to sun up like any other European country.

There are big differences to the US with regards to camping in designated sites in forests certainly - there is no official right to camp like Scotland certainly - but in over 35 years of walking,riding, running in Ireland I've never had issues putting up a tent/bivi to sleep once outside of national parks.

OP - lots of riding opportunities once you're willing to sit down and look at a map. Officially there is no designated difference between trails/footpaths/bridleways in Ireland. Once you're not randomly tramping across a farmers land, but on a designated right of way, you're golden. Walkers may believe they have the only access rights to trails, they are however misinformed.

[casper]

Not sure I agree with Piranha there at all and I agree with Greg that there are options.

There are loads of trails in Ireland, both official MTB and unofficial MTB.
There are also loads of trails that are designated for hiking but usually MTB is tolerated as long as you are respectful.
There are also a growing number of bikecampers but we are few and far between.
I have done a good bit of bikecamping and both bikecamped wild and also on campsites. There are lots of campsites especially on coasts but many close for winter.

I've bikecamped:

The western way hiking trail in Galway. Easy enough, 1 or 2 hard sections (parallel boardwalks) Planning on the bit in Mayo next.
The Mayo Grreenway - easy, beautiful, loads of camping and accommodation options. Did it last summer with 3 kids age 7, 10 and 12 on BMX's
The East Clare Way, easy, lots of options for wild camping etc
The Burren Way, easy on green roads and Boreens, some nice singletrack on some trails.
The wicklow Way (Fab but no wild camping in some areas such as Glendalough). Some hike a bike involved

AS mentioned by Carrawaystick the canals offer towpaths that go from Dublin to the Shannon. I've biked some of these, very flat but nice enough.

There are loads more options as well as trail centres such as Ballyhoura where you can do 50 km of bike trails then disappear off and onto hiking tails and take it up to 70 or even a 100 km. The European marathon champs where there and that was a 70 km trail.

In the West talk to Garry Davoren in MBW Bike shop in moycullen. If you are looking to put a route together he'll point out all the best spots on the Wild Atlantic Way. THE W.A.Y. may be on road but there are plenty of options to take a jaunt onto some great fatbike territory on coastal sections and off onto clifftop paths and fantastic Burren walking trails. Check out the luck of the dew promo video he did. Pic attached of a my wild camping spot high up in an abandoned village in Wicklow.

Get Googling Jim Mac!. See http://www.irishtrails.ie/ !

[Big Jim Mac]

Hey thanks for the update. No plans now but this is on my bucket list.