Cork to Macroom

June 8, 2025

We slept well but Dave’s knee was stiff when we woke up. He is managing but the knee is definitely an issue. We feel a bit demoralized. We had planned breakfast for 10:15 having been exhausted from yesterday’s ride (the hotel asked us to book a time) so we went down to the very large fitness center and spent half an hour stretching and working out beforehand. Dave assured me he was still up for riding. Cork is really the last day to stop riding west with any chance of public transport if we got stuck somewhere. There are trains in Cork that head to Dublin and allegedly take bikes, but after Cork there will be no opportunity to get on a train from anywhere we plan to be. A few limited expressway buses supposedly take bikes based on the mood of the driver but after doing some reading, it doesn’t look like it is anything a cyclist can count on! So, after today we are committed to ride for the next six or seven stages.

Breakfast was good. It seems to be the drill in Ireland to serve both a continental buffet and then take an order off the menu. I like it because it allows me to try some local specialties. Today I had eggs royal which are similar to eggs Benedict but with salmon instead of ham. The tea every morning is great, always served in a pot and hot and well steeped. And, we are learning to love both Irish brown bread and soda bread. We enjoyed the view out to the river and the bike trail on a Sunday morning as there were lots of dogs out walking with their parents. We had hoped to pack a sandwich from the buffet because there are no towns, coffee shops or pubs on our route to get sustenance. However, the Irish buffet didn’t include any cold meat or cut up cheese, so no go on that front. On the other hand, the ride was only 40 km to Macroom so we didn't expect it to be a crisis.

There are so many little details to deal with every day; we manage most of them by having a repeatable routine. One task though that isn't repeatable is the process for taking our gear to the bikes and getting the bikes loaded. It sounds simple but it isn’t. Depending on where the bikes are stored, we either take our panniers to the front or another door of the hotel and then bring the bikes around OR take our panniers to the bikes and load there. Sometimes in hotels with lifts there is a luggage cart and we always grab that when we can but sometimes the hotel staff doesn’t want us to take the cart and prefers that we call the porter, which we prefer not to do because its too fussy. And the location of the bike storage varies day to day, as retrieval could be from a locked storage room, an underground parking garage, a conference room. Sometimes we can get to them on our own without the staff, and sometimes we can’t. My point: there are always a few unknowns. Today, Dave and I had a stupid argument about whether we were going to ride down the elevator with all our gear and load in the bike room, or leave our panniers at the door and ride the bikes around. From Jill’s point of view: Dave is very opinionated about how things are done - and if I suggest something he usually wants to do something different: From Dave’s point of view: Jill is very opinionated and if I suggest something different from what she's thinking, she takes umbrage, thinking I'm dismissing her thoughts or engaging in "man-splaining", when all I'm trying to do is offer up additional options.

Anyway we had an argument about what to do and we both just kind of blew up. It’s really about other things: we are discouraged about Dave’s knee, my cold, the crappy Irish weather (etc). Just a low point.

And it got even lower when we pulled away from the hotel because I realized my kickstand was still down. I started to pull over thinking I had not clipped in (but I had) so I had a terrifying slow-motion fall onto the curb on my left side. Cyclists know how that feels. An Irish guy was right behind me and he ran over and helped me up and Dave quickly dismounted and did the same. I could tell right away I had banged my left knee but didn’t know how bad. The Irish guy wanted to take me back to the hotel and sit me down but we assured him I was okay. Then of course after he left, I burst into tears. I am sure we made a crazy sight on a busy Irish sidewalk, Dave hugging me while I bawled. I gathered myself together, remounted, rode a 100 meters, felt the sting in my knee and we decided we had better look after my knee. Dave parked in a nearby small parking lot, and initially perched me on a concrete ledge. We moved to another ledge after realizing there was a (very old) turd right next to me: just goes to show how shaken up I was as we didn’t even notice it.

My wounded warrior perched next to a turd. It was an inauspicious start to our day.

The second ledge wasn’t much better. It was clear (no turds, at least) but there were a bunch of beer bottles and trash behind it. It was the kind of place you don’t want to look too closely as there were probably a few used condoms lurking as well. Ah well, beggars can’t be choosers and it was the only place to sit. We then did our usual digging around in my panniers to find the first aid kit. When you finish a tour you always look at the stuff you hauled around for months without ever using the items and say to yourself, I am not taking that item next year! The first aid kit is the rare exception. You happily haul it around hoping never to have to use it. The last time we used it was three summers ago on our first tour: Dave did a slow-motion fall in front of me in Austria on the way to Werfen (I had to go double-check our 2022 journal to confirm the place) and skinned himself. Anyway, we dug the kit out of the bottom of my pannier and Dave applied antibiotic cream and a pad and bandage. All good. My knee stung but was tolerable. Later I could feel an ache in my hip too but - future alert: I am fine two days later!

We were off, finally. It was Sunday morning so we were hoping the traffic out of Cork would be calm, but it wasn’t. The first part of our ride was about 10 km up an extremely steep hill heading towards Blarney, home of the Blarney Castle. It is a very touristic site and on a Sunday it was busy so our ride through Blarney required negotiating lots of traffic. And of course, although not raining the wind was was blowing steadily and always in our faces like it has done all week. The sky was ominous and filled with dark clouds. Blarney looks like a cute and well-tended town.

After Blarney it was a very nice ride. We climbed a ridge and rode along it for most of the way to Macroom and it was pretty and quiet - and it would have been ideal had the weather been nicer and Dave’s knee felt better. It was really bothering him today. According to him, it does not hurt riding (and indeed he rides normally) but when he straightens his leg to get off the bike that motion impinges on what we think is the Baker’s cyst behind his knee. (All this being self-diagnosis, of course). We stopped for a nature break on the ridge and quickly split an emergency Kind bar since we had no lunch provisions.

We reached Macroom right at 3 pm. This location was picked for being mid point between Cork and Glengarriff (our next destination) but it turned out to have historical significance. It was near the home of the family of my Irish and American friend Mona. It was much more charming in person than it looked on the map and the Castle Hotel was ready for us with the requested room with a tub and bike storage. The hotel was a charming, traditional place open since before 1951, with the requisite pub and nice open areas.

To get to bike storage (which was a conference room at the back of the hotel) we had to ride all the way around the block, a task that turned out to be complicated because it was a very long block and we were sure we had missed the back entrance. After ten minutes of fits and starts we finally found it, rode our bikes up a ramp and into a conference room. Functioning electrical outlets abounded and the only concern the hotel staff had was making sure we vacated the room the following day because it would be needed for a funeral!

We were cold and achy and hungry so the pub sounded like a plan. We dropped our panniers, quickly changed and went downstairs. As an aside, it appears that Irish pubs, if they have a kitchen, are open all day which makes lunch at 4 pm feasible. This is a great for cyclists like us, who rarely manage to get an early start, so lunch (or at least a snack) in the late afternoon is often a need. So, that is one custom where we prefer Ireland over France - much as we love touring in France, lunch after 2 pm is impossible.

In any event, it was Sunday so the Irish Sunday lunch business was going on. There was a full buffet and a lot of families eating out. We had dinner reservations later on so didn’t want a full meal but after bumbling around a bit and asking several servers what the drill was we managed to purchase a bowl of carrot/coriander soup that came with brown bread and a pint of beer (brand forgotten) and split both at a table. The soup was delicious and warmed us up.

We then enjoyed the tub in our serviceable room that even came with a teapot and teacups and tea! (I enjoyed the following morning’s early pot of tea very much). Another aside: there seems to be consistency in Ireland in providing a tea kettle in the rooms. We have not had to pull out our trusty silicon portable kettle for several weeks, nor had to resort to using beer glasses, paper cups, or wine glasses for tea and coffee. Regular readers know I am always bemoaning the lack of tea and coffee cups in hotel rooms and cycleblazer Jacquie Gaudet recommended we carry a double-walled cup in our gear. So far, I have resisted taking up the space - but never say never, Jacquie!

The Critérium Dauphiné started today and Dave concluded we couldn't cast to the hotel’s old tv but we did manage to see it on his tablet and we watched an exciting first stage with the GC contenders going after a win on what should have been a sprint stage (Apologies to those of you who don’t follow cycling and don’t give a hoot).

Dinner in the pub was fun. Sunday evening was a busy night and we had shockingly good chicken wings for a starter. This is not something we ever order and we have entirely missed the American wing craze but Dave suggested them and there wasn’t anything else that looked appealing so I consented and they were unexpectedly excellent. The server said that many Irish tastebuds find them too zippy but to our American ones, they were perfect. That was followed by a pan-roasted duck breast. This is my third or fourth duck meal in a week and duck appears to be common protein on Irish menus. Irish cuisine is surpassing our expectations. Dessert turned out to be amusing. We have been trying to avoid it (sort of) but there was ice cream on the menu which we haven't seen much of in Ireland. We had to pick three flavors out of about eight and our server Oliwia (she is Polish) was happy to give her recommendations on each. We settled on salted caramel, black cherry and roasted banana (the last a close all over Ferreo Rocher) and there was a crisis when both our servers ran over and informed us they couldn’t locate the roasted banana. We assured them international relations would not be affected by the lack of banana ice cream and went for the Ferreo Rocher instead. Five minutes later a large bowl of ice cream appeared with FOUR scoops: the banana had been located and they just threw on a scoop of each of our four choices. This whole thing allowed us to visit with Oliwia and we learned her very interesting story. She appears to be in her early twenties. She was seven when her father came over to Ireland to make his way, leaving her mother and the three kids in Poland. He came home a lot and the family went over to Ireland frequently as well, and finally after seven years the whole family moved to Ireland. She is in University - I think it was in Cork - studying English and history, hoping to get an advanced degree and teach. (I hope I have those details right, Oliwia). Later we thought about the hardship of a family separated for seven years and how much of that is going on in the world right now. It made us feel sad.

Today's ride: 41 km (25 miles)
Total: 1,330 km (826 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	1
Comment on this entry	Comment	0