For those who fancy a gentler start to their season the Ardattin 200 (Sunday, March 13th) is an ideal choice, with no substantial climbs and plenty of support including an optional sit-down lunch at the Ardattin Inn. The toughest part of the day is usually getting back on the bike after lunch when a post-lunch pint seems more attractive. Parking, changing rooms and showers are available at the Bray Wheelers clubhouse at the start and finish.
Headed out from Bray around 8.30 yesterday for the second Audax event of the year, the Ardattin 200. It’s billed as flat, but actually fairly rolling up and down a lot of the time. I hung in with the pack down the coast past Wicklow, then a few of the gang wanted to up the pace and everything broke up a bit. As we got nearer to the first stop, after Woodenbridge, I realised that my bars were loose in the stem as I had only finished building up the new bike the previous day, and had a quick one hour spin to see would anything fall off. The bars got progressively looser as I got closer to the stop, but I finally made it just before the bolts fell out altogether !
Once I got things screwed back together I grabbed a few liquorice allsorts and dashed off with a gang of Orwellers, but they were a bit too quick for me so I ended up on my own most of the way to Ardattin. I overshot the pub and went on through the junction before deciding it must be back up in the village, and then when I came back I spotted all the bikes right by the road – don’t know how I missed them the first time. The Orwellers headed off shortly after I arrived, and then Eddie, Eoghan, Andreas, Frank , Nick and a few more rolled in. I was quite cold by now, so soup, tea and a feed of sangers were very welcome. We relaxed for a while and then headed off with Eoghan, Andreas, Aidan and Frank for the next stop in Rathdrum. Between Eoghans routesheet and Aidans Garmin we managed to navigate ok. My Garmin had been navigating OK too, but mysteriously stopped completely around 100km. As we got closer to Rathdrum Frank and myself dropped off the back a bit, and we really felt the drag out of Ballinaclash – it seemed to go on forever. Finally we got to the top of the hill at Rathdrum and flew down the other side to join the others at the checkpoint at the bridge. I was feeling pretty tired by now, but another cup of tea and a few tuna and cheese wraps, and fruit cake helped to perk me up a bit.
We headed on again down to Glenealy and across the wiggly bits to Ashford and on to the N11. From there it was a fairly straightforward lash up the main road at a reasonable pace, taking the road through Newtownmountkennedy which seemed to avoid one of the bigger hills on the N11. After that there was a bit of a slog up through Glen of the Downs before the final run through Kilmacanogue and back to the Bray Wheelers Clubhouse at 6.00pm, where we enjoyed another superb feed of tea, sandwiches, cake, biscuits and pancakes to top off the day.
Thanks as usual to Paul, Clare, John and the guys at the Checkpoints for looking after us all so well.