Posted by jp.stacey on August 29, 2016 at 6:02pm
The Belfast–Dublin group would still love recommendations for:
- A gathering-place in Belfast at around 0830 on Saturday morning.
- A route between Belfast and Dublin, suitable if possible for (a) safe cycling and (b) road cycles (so minor roads better than major roads or offroad routes.)
- (Maybe) somewhere to stay overnight near Dundalk.
- A gathering-place in Dublin at around 1800 on Sunday evening.
So not much, then!
But we'll probably figure out what we can: it would just really help if anyone can suggest anything, especially any possible pitfalls.
Comments
Post in Irish group
I would suggest posting this in the (all-)Ireland group: https://groups.drupal.org/ireland
Thanks: repost or crosspost?
Thanks, Stella. If you think it'll be welcome on the group I'll certainly do that.
Just an etiquette question: repost or crosspost? I think it'd need a better title on the Ireland group anyway, as even for this group in the cold light of day it reads a bit mad.
It'll be welcome on the
It'll be welcome on the group. I wouldn't worry about that. A repost might be easiest cos of the title and context.
I would suggest a crosspost
I would suggest a crosspost as else there would be two discussions on the same subject spread across two threads.
Suggestion for the title:
Don't worry, I'm on it: just
Don't worry, I'm on it: just hitting a deadline!
I'm not too bothered about crossposting for reason of sharing the discussion, as it's pretty quiet on this side.
Possible route; possible Dublin venues
This response from Conor over in the Ireland group is great. In summary:
Route
Cooperative Ireland do the route every year, and it looks pretty good on Mapmyride. The only issue I've queried is that they'll do some busy roads, because they get road closures, ride support etc. We won't have that!
Venues
Four options from Conor. The last one (Fade Street) is near a secure indoors council bike park (not sure how that might work) and has food venues. There are others, but either less secure or not much food. Still: options.
More info on routes: can someone with a Garmin start looking?
Conor's come through with yet more info about routes, which I've put into the wiki page:
https://groups.drupal.org/node/513179
Can whoever's bringing a Garmin (Stephen?) have a look into configuring it? If it's easiest to download from Mapmyride, probably the Maracycle route will do if we can vehicular-cycle on the busier roads.
Happy to take a look when I
Happy to take a look when I get a chance and compare the different routes. Most of the online routes can be exported as GPX files that can be loaded into a GPS or mapping app. I also have some software for editing them. I could probably come up with a couple of alternatives that we can discuss.
My tendency is to go for quiet roads if possible. I would much rather do some quiet, but rough and winding roads than do time on a major A road. But it would be good to know what other people's thoughts are on this. If there are people planning on joining us with decent road bikes then we would need to keep to decent roads.
My initial thoughts of the suggestions on the wiki are the Maracycle route includes too many major roads, the coastal route looks nice but might be too far for a mixed group of cyclists. The Google and Cyclestreets suggestions might be a good compromise, but will need some tweaking given they're algorithmically generated.
Quiet roads - but not too rough?
We probably need to work out what kind of bicycles everyone's going to have before we put too many limitations on the roads. One thing I would say is that if we're doing 100km, or more, then we probably don't want to require bikes suitable for offroading: they'll just be too heavy.
@criz has put some routes into Strava here:
https://groups.drupal.org/node/513179#comment-1150465
I think they both look pretty good. To be honest, I think the Cyclestreets quiet route looks better on reflection then when I first saw it: as I say on that other thread, it's mostly quiet roads.
No offroad routes please. We
No offroad routes please.
Christian and I are still looking for which bike to hire (actually which bike rental to choose). We want to have the rental arranged by the end of this week.
Some of the bike options are:
@MegaChriz didn't spot there
@MegaChriz didn't spot there was any kind of question here.
I don't really know what bike to recommend, but I think the main thing is to get a suitable tourer or hybrid, with tyres that will cope with cycle paths. The bike shop will likely be able to direct you better than I can!
Hi JP,The bikes for
Hi JP,
The bikes for Christian and I have been reserved now. It will be the Specialized Sirrus. My comment wasn't a question though. It was a response on your comment about wanting to find out what kind of bicycles everyone will have and then to base the route on that knowlegde.
Oh! sorry, I misread. Great
Oh! sorry, I misread. Great stuff.