Moira to Belfast

June 19, 2025

We slept badly because we had an early schedule. We were due at the Belfast Knee Clinic at 10:20 am for Dave’s knee consult and we had to ride 34 km to get there. We therefore set up a rare 7 am breakfast time and opted for only granola and yoghurt to avoid any delay with preparation of a hot breakfast. Ralph’s was a good choice for a bike traveler.

It was great to ride into Belfast from the south. There is a 18km bike trail all the way from Lisburn into Belfast called the Lagan Towpath. It goes by the river Lagan and through a leafy forest and it was hugely enjoyable; the good weather helped.

There was a lot of equestrian facilities in this area including this one which assumed to be a steeple chase field.

The tow path and canal provided for nice riding.

Jill negotiating a particularly narrow bridge crossing.

I have enjoyed the riding in Northern Ireland and we are wishing we had more time here. The scenery in the small portion of Northern Ireland we saw wasn’t as dramatic as in the south but the riding is simply good: small roads, nice people, less traffic.

We arrived at the Belfast Knee Clinic ten minutes before Dave’s appointed time, and of course we had to fuss around a bit getting organized hauling our gear into the waiting room, Dave stripping out of his rain pants etc. We felt like dorks, except Irish people are so nice you never feel (too much) like a dork (unlike say, in France!).

The doctor, Gavin MacLean, couldn't have been nicer. He had read the limited medical information we had been able to email over beforehand and took time asking relevant questions and listening to the answers and then did an exam. He was very encouraging with his opinions and had no hesitation recommending that we could continue with our ride. The Baker’s cyst had receded, which he considered a good sign, as well as a lack of inflammation, and thought the occasional pain Dave has on the inside of his leg wasn’t anything to worry about in terms of knee recovery. Dave has no pain while riding although his knee gets tired after about 60 km. For this reason I am re-evaluating some of our future long routes. The issue for him is walking and the occasional sharp pain. All in all, I felt much better about the situation. Okay, enough about that! (Do you remember when all your parents did was talk about their aches and pains and we as young adults thought this was such a bore? Sorry, Mom and Dad - I feel like a creep now for being annoyed).

We finished up at the doctor’s office, feeling like it was an overwhelmingly positive experience and wished it was as easy to see a doctor in the US. We rode over to the Ulster Museum, a newish Museum that covers a lot of history in Northern Ireland (prehistoric onwards).

We stopped for a cup of tea/coffee before beginning our walk around the Museum, and had one of our more interesting meetups with a young woman, Molly, who sat down across from us at the tea table. Molly is an activist (I think from London) and she was in Belfast doing some work with a group called House of the Peoples. At first she was reserved but once she identified we were sympathetic to her issues she opened up a lot. This current group is trying to get a groundswell of support to abolish the House of Lords, and create a “House of the Peoples,” the idea being that the House of Lords is old, corrupt, with a bunch of unelected peers who are unresponsive and unaccountable to the people. I knew from my prior reading of English history that there had been some attempts to abolish the House of Lords (eg: by the Labour Party under Tony Blair) but it never seems to get to the top of any priority list. Molly also works with a group called Time to Assemble, which has a similar mission. Its website is: timetoassemble.org. Before these endeavors Molly was a climate activist and she mentioned the 250,000 pounds her group was slated to receive from a US based aid organization was rescinded after the recent US administration’s pullback on soft foreign aid around the world. This unexpected development devastated her organization.

Our main purpose in going to the Ulster Museum was to see the exhibit on the “Troubles” but I couldn’t resist taking this shot of Patrick of Ifold, an Irish wolfhound who was a famous champion in the 1920’s and 30’s. He is a big boy. He had nothing to do with the Troubles (as far as we know).

The Troubles exhibit was very thought-provoking and reminded us of our visit in Berlin to the East German Museum, which presented life in East Germany after 1949 until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Both Dave and I were old enough to remember the press coverage of Belfast beginning in the late 1960s until the Good Friday Accords in 1998 - just as we could remember the events in East Germany during the same time period.

The following day I did a three hour political tour and I will reserve discussion of the conflict until then!

Since we have been in Northern Ireland suddenly all the school kids are in uniforms. We have seen many of them in the last few days but here is a group visiting the Museum:

After visiting the Museum we went out for a late lunch. We sat outside at a picnic table at Orto’s pizza and had a delicious wood fired pizza and a glass of IPA (Dave) and glass of wine (Jill). I declined however to choose the chicken tikka marsala pizza special. (I guess broadening my horizons only goes so far!)

I dunno, but Tikka masala chicken on a pizza didn't sound half bad to me.

It was beautiful sitting outside and we could keep an eye on our bikes.

We are staying in the Queen’s University neighborhood and I would recommend this area for any cyclist or tourist. The main artery through the neighborhood is Botanic Avenue and it’s full of cafe’s, bars and students. Our hotel, Tara Lodge, is just off the main avenue and it was a recommendation by the Finney’s from their trip to Ireland a couple of years ago. Thank you, Finney’s! It’s a really good choice for a moderately priced hotel in a fun neighborhood and the hotel has an interior courtyard that has easy bike parking. We could get at our bikes without needing the staff and that was helpful in going out and about in Belfast. We had a nice big room with a tub, but no ac and managed with a fan and some focus on opening and closing windows and drapes at the various times of day. The bummer: Our room was pretty warm and stuffy although we realized later that many rooms were much cooler. Dave thinks it has something to do with the direction our room faced. Dave knows this is just the start. I could find very few hotels with ac in Britain.

Tara Lodge - curb appeal is not great but it was pleasantly nice inside.

We were tired from our day and just walked down to a small Asian barbecue place for a light meal at dinner.

Today's ride: 34 km (21 miles)
Total: 1,715 km (1,065 miles)

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