Ride outs
The Vee
That June Sunday morning we were to meet with Finbarr and Jim for a bike spin. Juan & myself got prepared and went for an Irish breakfast in a place we discovered in town. At 11’am we were at the filling station with Finbarr, waiting for Jim who was waiting for his bike key, which was in the washing machine… 😀
Finally we left through Midleton, then up to Lismore where we had a first stop for a Coke/tarts/tea/coffee. Then we stopped down the village on the bridge with nice views over the castle.
It’s a very nice place, beautiful castle, the gardens are opened to the public. After a short pics break we headed to the left after the bridge, direction “The Vee”.
The road to get there is beautiful, not too large but the tarmac is good. Unfortunately we ended up behind a fuel truck with no room to overtake for a while. The road was nice anyway, under the trees along a river for the first part. Then you get to the “mountain” part with nice views of the mountains on each side.
We stopped at a first car park. From there there is a walk down to a nice lake and another walk up the mountain (not with bike gear…).
Then we went on to another car park with views to the lake. It was a rather cloudy day but even with not much light Ireland is so beautiful with her 40 shades of Green.
Then we went on for another stop before a big hairpin, already on our way down. As it was quite overcast the view didn’t go far, but it was very nice anyway.
We went down the mountains and started to head back, but Finbarr’s GPS wouldn’t stop taking us through back roads lol … and at one point it was too bad for me, with mud and small stones and I wouldn’t go further. Finbarr & Jim wanted to go to a pub nearby to watch the second half of Ireland-France as Ireland was leading 1-0, so we turned back through the main road and finally found a pub to watch the rest of the match.
Then we headed back home through Youghal & Midleton.
Such a nice spin on nice roads.
So nice that the following Sunday, back from Skerries road race, we had a late waking up, went for breakfast and headed back to Lismore & The Vee through the same roads. We didn’t stop as much to take pics but had a very nice spin. The weather was beautiful, bathed in beautiful sunshine and warm. The view at the lake was still a little bit cloudy on the mountain part,
but then at the hairpin we stopped for a good while as the view was very clear all around.
Also a group of bikes coming up informed us very nicely that there was a speed trap down the road in the village… which probably avoided a fine to us and the 2 other bikes who came behind us…
On our way home we stopped in Ardfinnan for an ice cream and refreshment in the lovely gardens.
And then we followed with another stop in the Harbour of Dungarvan
where there is a castle
and also a memorial to all Waterford Men fallen in the Continent during WWI
So sad to see so many lives lost 🙁 .
It was a beautiful spin, with nice roads and not much traffic…
For sure we will head back from time to time!
Thanks to our nice guide showing us beautiful roads and places around!
V’s
Road Races
Skerries 100 – 2016
Saturday was our first time at the Skerries 100 road races.
It was the only race in the South that is run on Friday for practice and Saturday for the races, as in the North. All other Southern road races are on Saturday-Sunday.
This year the Skerries 100 celebrated their 70th birthday- without interruption. The club organising now is Loughshinny Motorcycle Club since 1987, but from 1946 to 1986 it was organised by the Dublin & District Motorcycle Club. In 1987 the Loughshinny MCC who had been helping the D&DMCC in the setting of the circuit for the previous 8 years, bravely took over the organisation of the Skerries 100 in spite of already organising Killalane Road Race held in September on a close-by circuit.
Running a road race is quite costly, this year organising the Skerries 100 costed 120000EUR, a big part of it being the insurance. Road races have some good sponsoring, but if you really enjoy road racing and want it to go on, it is important to participate with the costs paying the entry fee and buying the programme.
This year price was 20EUR per person including a very nice programme with very nice articles about the Event history (including the information above), memories of ex competitors, photographer, etc… a very entertaining piece of writing.
But let’s come back to our experience. As we can’t take all the racing Fridays off, we missed practice day and left on Friday after work, and arrived late to the hotel close to Dublin. Early morning we left to arrive before road closure (9.00am). The GPS brought us easily to the circuit where we paid the entry and had 2 nice programmes (that way, everyday of the following week we both have entertaining reading for breakfast without any fighting 🙂 ).
We found a place to park and walked to the paddock for some breakfast, buy Skerries tee-shirts and say hello to Andy Farrell.
Then we headed to Sam’s Leap from where we would start the day. While waiting for the start we came across Mark, whom we had met in Armoy last year and who had introduced us to Andy Farrell. We were happy to see him again and he came back later and took Juan with him to show him other nice viewing spots.
The races started in the planned order, we were on the straight line after the tunnel, with a small leap, before a corner and the chicane before the finish. They were quite fast at that point but we could take some good pics.
William Dunlop
Derek Sheils
Steven Tobin
Michael & William Dunlop
Neil Kernohan
Davy Morgan
Seamus Elliott
Before the 600 Irish Championship race we moved back to the start/finish from where we watched the Start. Impressive.
I did a short video with the phone, from my husband’s shoulders (thanking him again from here for his cooperation 😉 as it might not have been the best race watching for him at that moment LOL ).
Skerries 2016 – Supersport Start
Still have to improve my video skills, but I’ll get there some day 😉 .
After the start we kept moving to the next barrier, from where we watched the race from a different view. It was nice to see a happy face there.
The Marshalls lead and/or follow the riders during practice, warm-up laps and first lap, and then stop at some points of the circuits ready to go in case of incident. They are doing a great job and are quite fast too! They are also checking the circuit conditions, which were quite changing over all the day, mainly in the afternoon. We could see the next shower coming, and had almost a shower between each race.
So between races we moved to a field after Finnegan’s Corner (named after Martin Finnegan, local road racer who raced and won many races before being tragically killed in Tandragee due to a brake failure).
The field had not been harvested yet, and the owners were kind enough to let people along. A pity that there are always a few who don’t care about others’ property (and business) and didn’t respect the “keep out of the crops” signs.
It was a strange place to watch as we were behind thick hedges but lower than the road. The view was amazing, and so close!
Parade Lap – Baylon Mc Caughey with Derek Sheils bike.
Baylon manages the Facebook group irishracephotography with all hot news about road racing, the racers, the teams and with many pics. Highly recommended for road racing lovers.
Parade Lap – a Rudge
Then we moved further along that same field, we had to wait for a shower to pass and watched the 600 B race,
Andy Farrell
and then moved to a field in front, at Joey’s Sweep, where there was a grandstand and also a food truck (at last! It was almost 3.00pm I think…).
Another shower while the 125 race was starting, but they ran it anyway, and rain and wet road didn’t seem to bother them too much. Nice race and impressive riders on those small machines, with those conditions!
Derek Mc Gee
Melissa Kennedy
Gary Dunlop
Sam Dunlop
After the race we moved further down the road to Dukes Bends (called after Geoff Duke although he only rode once at Skerries in 1949 and crashed on that bend…).
We were also in a field but this time above the road, and very close to the riders as they came out of the first bend. This was impressive. We watched the next races from there.
Here is a short video of the Supertwin Race
Derek Sheils & Paul Jordan
Jason Cash
Paul O Rourke
Derek Sheils
Paul Jordan
Andy Farrell
Michal Dokoupil
Veronika Hancocyova
With again showers. During a last heavy shower, the Superbike (Grand Final) riders went around the circuit for 2 laps with the marshall leading. But they decided that the conditions were too bad for the big bikes. One part of the circuit was drying fast, but the road from Finnegan’s Corner to where we were took some time for drying, with some very damp patches. Not talking about the tunnel under the tree which was probably the worst.
So the Grand Final was cancelled, but fair play to the riders who decided to go around for a few Parade laps.
Michael Dunlop did his own parade laps as if he was racing, or at least it looked like it as he didn’t go too slow… maybe he doesn’t know what slow means 😉 .
Well, that was very nice from all of them to go out anyway, us spectators really appreciated it.
When it was over we went back to the paddock to say goodbye to Andy’s team and then headed back home.
Once again a great day of races, very well organised in spite of the difficult changing weather conditions. No race incident, just one red flag during the last Classics race, but nothing to do with racing, a fight broke out in a potato field… A pity.
A huge thank you to organisers, riders and all people involved in giving us such a great event.
We will defo be back next year! 🙂
