Saturday, April 23, 2011

Brilliant Easter weekend mountain bike spin


Today I visited two well known places on the bike. Most of the mountain bikers in Dublin know these places but for some strange reason I never been there before. One of them is The Hellfire Club and the other one is Massey's Woods. But let me go from the start! :)

This morning I met my friend Attila in Rathfarnham and after a short conversation we've decided to go and have a random spin up in the Wicklow. The weather was nice but not as nice as it was during the week. It was a bit coldish and windy, the sky wasn't clear at all. 

The first place on our route was Threerock just as usual. We climbed up on the road and from the lower carpark we hit some of the know singletracks. From the top we had a quick decend on the new trail and after we cycled some of the less common tracks also. It was great but both of us wanted to get out of there and get something else done. So we hit the fire road that leads towards the Wicklow Way and after we got to the trails we started to climb on it. By that time the weather got better also. We got the Wicklow Way's short stage done very quickly and we turned on the Dublin Mountain Way.

I never cycled that trail either and I have to say: it is great. I really did like it with all the water drains accross the trail, with all the big drops and of course with the board walk!! The board walk is so much fun to ride! :)

Our next destioantion was Massey's Woods. This place was absolutely new for me. This is a huge forest park with many wide and narrow trails. They are super fast trails and very enjoyable to ride. No rocks or roots on them, they are fast and smooth tracks.
Nice place to ride in deed! :)
The other great place is just accross the road and it's called Hellfire Club. Strange but true: I never been here before. After we left the carpark we started to climb the fire road but after couple of hundred meter we seen the BEST STEEP CLIMB around Dublin. Of course I didn't want to miss anything, so we climbed this mad thing all the was up to the top. It is not technical (except a short section with roots close to the end) but it is super steep. The gradient hit  even 38-40% at some places! This climb will be on my list if I want to ride some serious uphill trails. 

After we got up to the top we cycled back to the carpark and at theat time it was time to get home. Todays spin was great, we have done 45km on the bike in 3 hours time. The total elevation was 1000m this time, so we had plenty of cimbs along the way.

The profile of today's spin

And here is the map also
It was so nice to visit and explore different places, especially because they are so close to the city. I am sure I will ride often on these trails, they are great! :)

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