Galway To Leitrim June 10, 2016

At the end of rider meeting last night were was a bunch of kidding that people wanted Full Irish for breakfast, with the implication being that I should get up extra early to make them bacon and eggs, fried tomato etc for breakfast.   Well we got a full Irish treatment today, but not what they had been thinking they were going to get.   It poured rain most of the night and at times it was pretty heavy.  In the morning the clouds were heavy and low.  The rain was more of a drizzle than a real rain.

The route I had laid out took a few back lanes and twists which took us out of town before we were got on to the N17.  By this time the traffic was lighter and there was a wide shoulder.  It was a very nice road with good smooth pavement.   We followed the  road all the way north to Taum where we got onto a secondary road and continued north.

 

The drizzle came and went and by the time we got  about 35 kms into the ride it had stopped completely so rain jackets were stowed.  It was a pretty nice ride as the road had lots of twists and turns and ups and downs.  The pavement did have some chip seal surface but there were several longer sections were there was no chip seal. 

We stopped in Castlerea for a sandwich in a local Super Valu which we at in a nearby park.  This was at the 77 kms mark so we had 40 kms to go. 

Right after lunch we were riding out of town and could see a huge column of smoke.  As we got closer and closer we could see the flames inside the column of smoke were 40-50 ft high.  It looked like something pretty flammable was on fire.  We assumed somebody was burning some garbage as it was out in the country.  However a few kms down the road a pair of fire engines came flying down the road toward us. 

About 5 kms later  the rain started to come down so the jackets were pulled out.  This continued until we got to about the 95 kms mark when the light rain turned into a cloud burst and it really started coming down.  I was out front with Ken and I asked if he wanted to stop and pull on rain pants.  But he said lets just go for it.  So I jumped on the pedals and sure enough in about 5 kms the rain lightened up and in 10 it was down to a light drizzle. 

Even though it rained most of the day it was still a very nice ride day.  It turned out to be 117 kms with 1047 meters of climb.  The temperature was almost perfect for riding. The road surface was some of the smoothest of the trip and we had a lot of fun riding.  To top it all off the pub was serving chicken curry which was excellent. 

Terry