We are coming to the end of a couple of days of great motorcycle touring on the West Coast of Ireland and what a fab time we have had. Roads are great, scenery is jaw dropping and the welcome in this part of the world has been amazing.
Before arriving here, we had a couple of days in Northern Ireland over the weekend at a motorcycle event which had started with a catch up with some friends, a visit to Phillip McCallen Motorcycles and then a ride over to see the practice for the Cookstown100 Irish road race!!!! It was our first visit to see road racing and it was pretty mindblowing to watch those guys racing motorbikes on everyday roads rather than on specially designed race circuits. The weather held for the time the bikes were out doing practice, a couple of red flags came out whilst we were there but thankfully no one was seriously hurt. We missed the actual race which was on the Saturday but we understand there was great racing to be seen with Michael Dunlop winning both Superbike races and Guy Martin winning the Supersport race.
Over the weekend we had ridden around Strangford Loch, skirted the lower regions of the Mourne Mountains and then headed north of Belfast on some very open flowing motorcycling roads and even better the weather was glorious! This photo was taken overlooking Strangford Loch – a very tranquil and beautiful setting.
On the Sunday we headed south west across from Northern into Southern Ireland. Our route took us on a great variety of roads from motorway to dual carriageway, single carriage to single track!!! All of the roads though were quiet and some great technical sections to keep us on our toes after the stretch on the motorway! One thing we did find was how aware car drivers are of motorcyclists over here, we had so many of them move over for us or call us passed when safe to do so.
We are staying in County Clare, a beautiful part of the world and whilst the weather forecast was for 35mph gales we were not daunted and set off to explore the Atlantic coastline. We were faced with rolling seas but blue skies for most of the day and the high winds seemed to blow any threatening rain clouds away from us fortunately!
Riding in this part of Ireland is a dream, we understand it can get pretty busy over here in the summer months with tourist coaches so if you are thinking of doing any motorbike touring here best to avoid those months. There is something very relaxing about riding along breathing in the fresh sea air, watching waves crash onto the shore line and all on very grippy, flowing roads – we would highly recommend coming to this part of the world – so much so we can feel a tour coming on!!!