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On Inishmore, the Aran Islands

We took the ferry from Galway over to Inishmore, which was a trip not without its are-we-going-the-right-way-will-we-make-it-on-time-where-are-our-ferry-tickets drama. We did go the right way. We made it on time, but only barely. There was a situation with the tickets, but it wasn’t the end of the world. We made it onto the ferry, a different kind of vessel entirely, this time bouncing over the same types of waves. But not as big. And people still got sick.

Adam and Jessica did some shopping and relaxing. We wanted to see a bit more of the island and ride bikes. First we saw a horse:

And then I got to ride in this. People don’t believe me when I say how much I enjoy the weather, but this is the most fun kind of riding:

And since I didn’t bring any sunglasses — no sun! — I just rode in my glasses, which looked like this instantly and constantly:

My rental, an almost brand new Felt mountain bike. That’s the same company as my road bike. And while I have no desire, ever, to do mountain bike riding, this is a sweet little rig. Though it is heavy.

The other problem? I can’t see the cassette. I have no idea what gear I’m in back there!

But we got to ride on roads like this. How perfect is this?

And down here is a rock beach where the seals come in. We saw one down there, but he scurried off before we got close:

Some of the other brave road warriors that we met in the rain:

I mentioned the Burren region the other day, here’s an interesting example of the sheets of rock you see here. And, for whatever reason, the grass that grows through there is incredibly nutrient-rich for the livestock.

We rode up to one tail end of the island, until we could ride no more, and then we walked up to Dún Aengus, which has been called “the most magnificent barbaric monument in Europe.”

Three dry-stone ramparts and part of a fourth, with the outermost closing in 11 acres.

If you’ll look to the left of that picture above it just seems as if the fort is floating in the air. For good reason. It overlooks the Atlantic Ocean and dominates the surrounding landscape as the highest point on the island. No sneaking up on this place, so it was both offensive and defensive. And also possibly cultural. Or religious. And, if anything like the mainland forts, it might have also once marked a territorial boundary.

Frustrating historians and archeologists, this site was a multi-generational endeavor. The dry-stone technique doesn’t yield a lot of clues. Weathering erosion isn’t very helpful. So they looked at how the walls are related to one another, the ground plan and exposed cross sections in some areas of the walls.

That’s given them three major phases, the first was in the late Bronze Age, perhaps between 1100 and 500 BC. Around 800 BC Dún Aengus was thought to be a cultural center for several related groups. In the Iron Age, between 500 BC and 500 AD, there was a decline of activity at the site and little evidence of what may have been taking place there. There were some defensive additions made which suggests the site’s importance had diminished. People may have just moved on, for a variety of reasons. It was a busy 1,000 years in Ireland, after all.

In the early medieval period, between 500 and 1100 AD there is evidence of the final major remodeling of the fort. Quarry work made a vertical plateau. The walls were thickened. Terraces were added inside. Evidence suggests that people were living at Dún Aengus once again.

Also, you’re more than 300 feet above the water here:

I didn’t want to say anything at the time to worry The Yankee, but the thought occurred to me, at the moment I took this picture, that people could have very unfortunate “accidents” here. When I told her later in the evening she said “I had the same thought.”

We both made it back without pushing one another. So did these two ladies:

Even the lichen growing on the rocks is beautiful:

Here’s the view from Dún Aengus.

And here’s a bit of video, just to give some ambiance:

About the name of the fort. In Irish mythology, Aengus — Óengus (Old Irish) or Áengus (Middle Irish) — is a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann and probably a god of love, youth and poetic inspiration. The Tuatha Dé Danann a race of people in the invasions tradition of Irish mythology the fifth group to settle Ireland, conquering the island from the Fir Bolg, whom we also learned about at the Cliffs of Moher. It is all starting to come together now, right?

The name Aengus stems from a Proto-Celtic origin, and if you’re really brave, Wikipedia will get you started.

Nearby were more cattle:

And then more riding. The rain stopped when we weren’t on the bikes and continued again for awhile when we got back in the saddle, almost like magic. So I chased her around the island some more:

We saw other tourists and locals alike. The next few shots are just of people pedaling:

At the far other end of the island we found a field of rabbits. I took several pictures in this sequence and tried to put them together. It isn’t quite right, but it is interesting:

More to the middle of the island again we passed the Lucky Star Bar, which looked like it hadn’t been lucky in some time:

The most prominent cemetery we found on Inishmore:

More of those beautiful rock walls that dot the landscape:

And this path isn’t on the map, nor is the ridiculous ridge we rode across trying to get over to the other side to see the ocean:

But here is the route we took, minus some scary and fun off road portions:

By comparative standards, a contemporaneous church:

Sadly turned our rental bikes back in. I grew to enjoy this thing pretty quickly. It was heavy, but great on hills. You could really sling it around well, and the shocks were a big novel fun:

After we vainly tried to dry off we walked back passed the closed Lucky Star Bar and found there were new tenants:

And we headed to Joe Watty’s pub, one of the view options on an island of 870 people. (There was also an “American restaurant” in a hotel that apparently came off like the 1980s place in Back to the Future III, just a hodge-podge, and full of locals.) This place was packed too. Our host told us that there was a big local sports and youth festival this weekend and tonight they were crowning the island’s pageant queen. It was all going down in Joe Watty’s, which became shoulder-to-shoulder and chest-to-back packed.

The food was delicious though. We realized we’ve eaten incredibly well in Ireland, despite a few too many desserts. The food has been good and not processed and hearty and I want it every meal.

Tomorrow morning we’ll have breakfast with our B&B hosts and then catch a ferry back to the mainland. We’ll drive back to Powerscort in Enniskerry for one more night before this incredible vacation has to, inevitably, come to an end. We’re having a blast. And going to start looking for jobs here.

We’re only slightly kidding about that.

cycling / history / I do not know what is happening. / Ireland / music / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
25
Jun 13

Cycling the Dingle peninsula

We decided this morning that our current host is like the Irish grandmother we didn’t know we had. The rooms are a bit small, and the WiFi has the curious ability to stop at our front door, but it is clean. The gentleman of the house, Tim, is a retired police officer. His guardia station can be seen from the dining room window. A 30 second commute, he said. Mrs. Eileen made a delicious breakfast and fussed over us continually. One of the other current guests, she said, has been coming to visit her every year for a decade. It isn’t especially hard to see why. You’re just dropping by to spend a night or two with an old friend here. It is lovely.

We went out for a bicycle ride today. Here was our route, zoom in and follow along:

This is just under two miles into the ride and we’re just getting started. We met some nice folks from the D.C. area and swapped pictures with them. Figured it would be the sort of thing where we leap frogged one another all day, but we only saw them one more time.

Here’s a lovely little waterfall we found in Ventry, just under five miles into the ride:

That waterfall is very close to the Dunbeg Fort, or Dun Beag, which is dated to about 2,500 years old. There’s a sign here that quotes National Geographic “one of the very few oldest historical monuments that we have left in this planet.”

So, being history nerds, we started counting things older. Never mind that now, though:

She does handstands at forts and on beaches and other interesting places:

And planks. (She’s taking them back.)

The fort consists of four ditches and five mounds, with dry stone masonry. It was originally a straight rampart, but later work made it circular. There were guardhouses and the remains of a square Clochaun, a dry-stone hut with a corbelled roof, a building technique common in this part of the country’s history. There is also a Souterrain, or a manmade cave if you like, that likely dates to the Iron Age. It was probably used for storage, refuge and passageway.

There’s an active geological fault here, the signs say, which has contributed to some erosion of the original earthworks.

And various reasonable yoga poses, merging old forts with old fitness disciplines in the world. Because she can:

Off to the other side of Dun Beag:

These next several are in the Slea Head area, when we were about 10 miles into the ride. Adam is beginning to think this activity disagrees with him:

Here’s a little more local history:

Is this not the coolest piece of road? A different version of this picture is going into the headers on this page and is presently the image on my home page, too:

We took a lunch break at the Great Blasket Centre, which is full of hardscrabble history. There’s still quite a bit of ancient Gaelic culture in this area, they say.

We found the Reasc Monastery about 20 miles into our journey. It is thought to date to the 6th century and featured seven of those Clochaun huts, six of which were arranged in pairs for the monks’ residences, you’ve just learned a bit about. There is a graveyard with 42 graves and the remains of a slab shrine.

There was a small church oratory here, of course. The area around it was used as a children’s burial ground after the monastery was abandoned.

It is important to note, when you see those Clochauns, or beehive huts, that the re-creations, or remains, honor an important part of the shared European heritage. During the dark ages, places like these huts were where the educated people, typically high ranking church members, lived. These were the people that played a significant role in keeping literacy alive.

You can peer at the walls of the monastery and see what was original and what had been reconstructed by archeologists. (There was a tarpaper layer noting the difference.) And if you wonder where the original stones went, my guess would be into the walls that mark pastures everywhere. here.

At least 10 of these types of slab stones have been recovered from the site. The cross inscriptions of the Reask stones also feature spiral designs and the letters DNE, which you can only barely make out here perhaps. The abbreviation is for Domine, which is Latin for “O Lord.”

This is the Kilmalkedar church, a 12th century structure on a sight that is religiously important back to at least the 7th century. Some of the artifacts here go well beyond that, even. The Hiberno-Romanesque church includes a nave and chancel. The chancel is thought to have been a later addition. The Saint’s Road, a pilgrimage trail to Mount Brandon, passes between the church and the nearby house of St Brendan. There’s a prominent medieval cemetery here, a sundial, cross slabs and this holed ogham stone.

Some literature suggests that stone had been there nine centuries before the church went up, some of the engravings support that idea. It marked a grave, which has suggested that this was holy ground even in the pre-Christian era. The hole was drilled through so people could come to seal a deal—standing on the graves of their ancestors and in front of the house of God by touching thumbs through this stone. People renew their wedding vows there, too.

You go into the church through this romanesque doorway. It has three orders and a round head with a projecting hood made from red and green stone. The keystone is a carved head. As we learned at Cashel these head carvings often had a role in warding off evil spirits. So perhaps this one was a sentry as well:

We finished our ride with a long, easy 300 foot climb as the sun set over Smerwick Harbor. In 1580 600 Italian and Spanish troops (sent by the pope to aid a rebellion) surrendered here to the English, and were slaughtered for their trouble. Have a nice day!

Here are several extra shots from the day’s ride, mixed with music we heard with dinner last night:

We coasted back into Dingle town, got back to our B&B and cleaned up for dinner at The Dingle Pub. After all of that bike riding, 29 miles and almost 1,000 feet of climbing, on rental bikes he was beat. He kept saying “I do not know what is happening.”

cycling / memories / Wednesday — Comments Off
5
Jun 13

Throwback Wednesday

Because it is June, and because I make up the rules around here, I’ve decided that this will be a week of older pictures. Most of these are on my phone. Some of them have been in this space or elsewhere on the site or in some of the regular social media places before. So they might be old to you — and bless you for still visiting — or they might be brand new.

Enjoy.

This is perhaps my favorite little bridge to ride my bicycle over. I’ve been fortunate to pedal over great big overpasses that cross state lines over brackish waterways and across little bumpy things that just get cars over glorified streams. But this one, all ancient and rickety from the looks of things, carries you over a railroad track.

It is surprisingly sturdy, I’ve watched cars and trucks go over it, but the first time I found it, on the backside of town and the backside of everything I normally ride, I went back and forth over it three times, just to listen to the sounds my bike made on it.

I should ride it again soon.

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adventures / cycling / photo / weekend — Comments Off
1
Jun 13

Race day

The Yankee had another race at at beautiful Blalock Lakes in scenic Newnan, Ga. this morning. Here’s a panorama of the swimming start. Click to embiggen in a new tab:

I think it is evocative of some 1970s sentiment, what with the faded into chemical oblivion effect the early morning sun offered, and this translucent guy who decided to pop up right in the middle of the shot, only to disappear again. I bet if we look really hard we can see what he’s thinking.

Speaking of early morning, Jimi Hendrix’s Watchtower before 7 a.m., there should be a rule one way or the other on that. As in, every morning or in never in a morning. Not sure which.

Anyway, The Yankee is on the right side of this picture, waiting on the start command:

From a different perspective, atop the levee, you can see the last heat, the red caps, waiting to begin their race. Some of the green caps, the second wave, are already returning from their 600-meter swim.

One of these red caps doesn’t know it yet, but he’s about to be hurting. He made it about 570 meters went suddenly hypoxic and they had to fish him out of the water. He scared us all for a while. They put him in an ambulance and had to talk him down like he’d had too many drinks. He wanted to finish the race, but there was just no way. His poor wife was understandably terrified. They took him off to the hospital. The race organizer, at the end of the day, told me he was doing well. They were giving him more tests. It was nice to see, though, how well they took care of that guy.

Hey, what were you doing as a 12-year-old? I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t racing triathlons:

Here comes The Yankee, back from her 14-mile, hilly ride:

One day I’ll get a good picture of her on the bike. But she’ll have to ride more. She’s been off for a week because of, first, a bike repair and, then, an illness. Despite all of that she still won a medal, placing third overall:

Another Saturday, another piece of bling.

cycling / iPhone / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
22
May 13

Just a bicycle post

Yesterday we pedaled the loop around town. I was riding behind The Yankee and watching her work down into the drops as she got into a hill. I pass her on the climbs, trying my hardest to make it look nonchalant when really my lungs are falling out of my feet. She usually catches me later and all will be grand.

Until, about halfway through, her front derailleur failed. I was caught by a red light and she wasn’t behind me. So I waited through the cycle and still no bicycle. Another turn of the lights and finally she topped the hill. She’d been in her worst gearset for two hills because a rivet popped out and forced her into the wrong chainring. We tinkered with it under a brilliant sky and earnest sun and finally pedaled the rest of the way slowly. As in, this is easy and I have good legs and could take on the world, slowly. I topped one of the larger hills in my biggest gear at this pace and didn’t even feel it. Great legs!

So, today, with her bike in the shop and a cold coming on, she stayed inside and I decided to ride the loop again. If I did it comfortably and easily yesterday, I figured, this will be great to do it at pace.

Only it didn’t work that way. It was warm. My legs weren’t good. I hadn’t eaten enough. I was a bit tired. And my mind was busy making excuses for what was going on. I found some shade at a vacant grocery store:

It is funny, but I’ve noticed that the days that feel the worst — I could complain about the heat and how I feel and all that — allow me to look at the computer and find a new personal best for that route.

Even progress is humbling.

Also, I need to get back into the long rides. The ones I really want to do, the ones in my Map My Ride account are a lot longer than around town. I mapped out a route that would let me hit Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, three states in an afternoon. I just found another one for the Silver Comet and Chief Ladiga trails, which cover Georgia and Alabama and is the longest paved trail in the country. Somewhere out there is the big one, the state tour. Sitting in the shade of a dead Kroger isn’t going to make any of those happen.

So I did a few more miles and marveled at the heat and the various ways I feel on the bicycle right now.

Yesterday we went to James Brothers and Danny asked how my recovery was going. Right after I crashed they were all very concerned, which is nice. The answer, though, depends on when you ask. At that moment I felt great. As I write this … well, I’ve felt better. Nothing a 400-mile week wouldn’t cure, I’m sure.

But these things are what they are. He’s bouncing back from some difficulties that have hampered his training. We talked of triathlons and marathons and various things. I’m hanging out with people who say things like “I can run 10 miles, but I can’t run 12 because … ” and wonder what I’m doing in that conversation.

So naturally tonight we had a healthy dinner and I treated myself to the foam roller. Later I had ice cream.

There’s not a lot to this, because today was today. Tomorrow will be full of errands, however, and so that’ll be something to write about. Just you wait and see.

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