Ardmore to Cork

June 7, 2025

Today was set to be a big day of riding, 76 km to Cork. We had decided not to worry about an early start because the weather forecast, while not exactly good, had low odds of rain, and breakfast was so lovely it was hard not to linger. So we took off at 11 am, after another nice visit with Sean, our courteous and helpful doorman, and his cohort Jacob.

We will always feel a special place in our cycle touring memory for the Cliff House. It was truly signature and was worth the effort.

A rare photo: A) A cloudless and beautiful sunrise and B) Jill took this shot at, am I getting this right?!, 5:00am

Jill enjoying breakfast overlooking Ardmore Bay.

The evening before I developed a scratchy throat and that morning I could tell I was getting a cold and because of that, we stopped in at the pharmacy to pick up cough drops. It is much easier to shop in a pharmacy where you speak the language! The cold symptoms also made me lay awake last night and ponder potential changes to our itinerary if I got more seriously ill, but I felt okay and wanted to continue our plan when I woke up.

The bill we paid for the Cliff House was stiff but we felt it was worth it - so I just closed my eyes and tapped our card at the front desk.

We wound our way north around the nearby inlet for the first 17 km to arrive at Youghal. It was a reasonable ride except for one terrifying five minute interlude when we wound up on a causeway where the minimal one foot shoulder disappeared altogether and the trucks acted like we didn't exist. We weathered that and rode into Youghal for a needed coffee at Priory Coffee; we sat outside to keep an eye on the bikes even though it was chilly.

Just as we were getting ready to leave, the rain started so we took an extra ten minutes to add our rain booties and hoods. Of course, as we left the rain stopped, but we kept our kits on to ultimate good use because we got some heavier rain later in the ride. After Youghal we rode onto the Midleton-Yougal Greenway, a new 23 km bike trail just opened in December 2024. It was an impressive piece of cycling infrastructure and I wish there was more of it.

Unsure of what we're looking at here, but I found these ruins, situated in the middle of the field interesting.

Sometime during the Greenway my odometer clicked over to 8000 km.

Dave’s odometer turned over a few weeks ago - he has done a little more riding than I have! (When I queried him about that he pointed to his Mt. Ventoux commemorative socks he was wearing that day.)

Midway through the greenway ride it started to pour and Dave eventually stopped under a bridge overpass to wait out the storm. There we met Gerry, a knowledgeable Irish cyclist who had pulled over for the same reason. He explained the difference in Irish cycling nomenclature between “greenways” and “blueways”. Greenways are cycling routes in the Irish interior, while blueways are along the coasts. When he learned we were on our way to Cork he’s asked if we were going through the tunnel. I didn't think we were but he looked at our route and assured us we were okay. There have been a couple of cycling deaths there recently, and indeed that evening I looked up a recent cycling death in Cork that was in the news. So depressing.

The visit with Gerry was great because in the meantime it stopped raining so we remounted and rode hard into Midleton in windy conditions. Dave was bonking as we rode into the little town and stopped at the first cafe we saw. At Rottie’s Cafe we split a chicken burger, a Fanta and a bag of chips all for 10 euros. The chicken burger was actually pretty good - or maybe we were just cold, hungry and tired and happy for a small pleasure.

We still had 27 km to ride and now we were off the greenway and into some Irish traffic. It was not for long however; as we neared Cork the good news was getting on an unexpected cycleway for about 10 km all the way into the city, a circumstance that greatly enhanced my opinion about Cork! It was Saturday afternoon and the City’s population was out in full force so the streets were very busy and we were tired and therefore relieved to navigate on bike trails and not streets. We rode all the way through town following the River Lee. About this time my phone battery died so I had no navigation. We had kept our phones in airplane mode the whole day and tried to ride as much as possible with the screen off to conserve battery life. Dave only had about 5 percent left on his battery so we crossed our fingers we could make the last 5 or 6 km. We had just crossed a tributary of the Lee River when his battery also gave up the ghost. He pulled out his emergency phone charger, plugged it into his phone, looked up, and - lo and behold- the Kingsley Hotel was a block away and in plain sight!

Check-in was quick and the doorman Ciaran walked with us down to the underground parking garage where there was a handy storage room for bikes. Thank you Kingsley Hotel. We were even more relieved when we saw a number of electrical outlets which would allow Dave to charge in place rather than have to haul the batteries up to our room. Dave’s normal routine is to come back and deal with the charging later in the evening when he is fresh and cleaned up and organized. I foolishly suggested he deal with it while we were down there, which was a mistake. It’s a hassle because the chargers are at the bottom of his panniers, and there is just a level of fussiness in dealing with the plugging in, gathering the adapters, etc. And, so it proved to be, because we ultimately learned that none of the outlets were functional. The upshot: we had to repack the chargers and pull the batteries off (using the keys I keep in my belt pack) which makes carrying everything in one go impossible. Our saving grace was Ciaran who patiently waited while we managed all these little chores and kept up a mystifying but amusing monologue, most of which I missed both because I couldn’t understand his Irish accent but also because I was so tired I couldn’t concentrate. It was something about a pacemaker and kickboxing. His weird charm and patience was much appreciated, however, as was his extra brawn in helping us carry all our gear up to our room. We were too tried to remember to ask for a photo but later after I recovered I went downstairs, got some change and tipped him. As I left he was happily prancing around the front desk staff - tipping isn’t customary here, I guess so five euros was a big deal! I also found the bar and rounded up a pint of Murphys, a local beer from the area recommended by my friend Mona that we will see in Dingle later this week.

Dave’s knee was really sore and we agreed that 76 km was the farthest we could ride, both due to our phone batteries and our internal batteries! We collapsed in our wonderful tub and eventually revived ourselves enough to go down to dinner.

Our hotel was large, comfortable and dated (Dave thought the eighties) and also distinguished itself by the fact that it was $407 per night. This seemed wildly more expensive than it should have been. Cork’s hotel rooms were very expensive in general and this was the only hotel I could find with AC. It would be the last time I could find a room with AC for many weeks so I decided Dave was worth it.

Cork has many good dinner spots but we were about 4 km outside of the center and we opted to eat at the hotel restaurant, and were happy we did. The restaurant exceeded expectations, which were admittedly low (I only saw one review and it was scathing), but convenience won out and it was a good thing because we’re simply too tired to do anything other than eat. It was a nice setting right on the river Lee. There was a lady playing the violin the whole time we were there, which I told Dave was great because I was too tired to talk. Listening to music was perfect. We had a Caesar salad (a common item here on menus) and split Korean barbecue ribs. We had a pleasant conversation with the couple at the next table - once they found out we were American they launched into the Trump thing asap, as everyone appears wont to do.

We enjoyed this woman's violin playing while we ate.

We fell into bed, and later Dave noted I was asleep before he could even kiss me good night!

Today's ride: 76 km (47 miles)
Total: 1,289 km (800 miles)

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