From Dublin to Spain on a bike. Peter Murtaghrevs up
This was Tony's idea. Not mine. But still, here I am - and he - outside Guinness's brewery in Dublin (St James' Gate itself) getting our special pilgrim passports stamped before we set off for Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain.
To say we are embarking on a pilgrimage is something of an exaggeration. "Sort of" pilgrimage would be more accurate. Our intention is to travel from Ireland to France, to Vezelay, about 200km south-east of Paris. This is the main starting point for one of the main pilgrim routes to Santiago. Many others also flow across western Europe from points further north and east, most of them converging at the western end of the Pyrenees and crossing into Spain.
From there, the main pilgrim route, the Camino de Santiago (or the Way of St James) goes west through Pamplona, and through the mountains of northern Spain, to Galicia, and the medieval pilgrim city of Santiago - Sant Iago, the city of St James, and to the great cathedral that stands there in his name. Purists, the truly devout, do the pilgrimage on foot. There has been some backsliding for sure: one may also accomplish the journey on horseback or bicycle - so long as the last 100km are done on foot or horseback, or the last 200km on bicycle. But my research throws up no references to pilgrims on motorcycle.
Forgive me Father, for I have not ridden a motorcycle for 34 years. The rush is fairly instant, however. My brother's Kawasaki 550GT, a former Garda bike that still packs a punch, clips along nicely. The brother waving goodbye soon disappears in the rear-view mirror as I whizz through the Vale of Avoca in Co Wicklow, over the hill, across Red Cross and out onto the N11.
The first feeling that rushes back is the incredible sense of freedom. It's a different sensation to other feelings of freedom - it's youthful and carefree, no weight, no responsibilities. There's an edge to it. And then, of course, by the time you see the first other road user, the first car or, worse, lorry, you realise how unbelievably vulnerable you are. One wrong move by anyone, including you, and you're hedgehogged into the road or spattered off a wall, the emergency services left hosing down the mess.
By the time I left the N11 at Greystones on that first ride after so many years, my hands ached because I'd been gripping the handlebars so hard, my whole body was rigid, unmoving . . . hmmm, many second thoughts.
But over weeks of practise, there's a return of proper confidence - a relaxed familiarity with the road, a healthy awareness of what could go wrong: the guy in the outside lane who decides to turn at the last moment (happens all the time where the M11 veers away left from the M50 and into Loughlinstown); the drivers who accelerate when orange goes to red (a good reason for the biker not to speed off the instant his red turns to green).
Forgotten skills are soon re-learned. Like the ability to turn without steering. Just lean into the bend, tilt to one side and, well, go with the flow. (There's another way of turning as well. Technically, it's known as the wriggly bum method. Keep your back straight and, using your pelvis, jut your backside over in the direction you want the bike to go. And it will. Promise.)
After a while, you become familiar with weather and parts of the landscape. A slight breeze in Wicklow becomes a buffeting gale when it licks off the Big Sugar Loaf at Kilmacanogue. Further along the N11, the elevated ground at Rathmichael at your left shoulder and Killiney Head northeast create a funnel for the northwest wind at Cherrywood.
I love riding with the visor raised, the wind whooshing into my face. Sometimes flies hit you and sting like an elastic band snapping hard against your skin. But other times, you get the pungent odours of the countryside - like the wild garlic in the Glen of the Downs.
Tony has been riding bikes for the past several years, always a BMW. He got a new one last week and the company lent me mine. It's some machine. Whereas the Kawasaki was recognisably the descendant of what I rode 34 years ago (Honda 50s mostly), the BMW RS1200 GS Adventure is a whole different animal.
It's a larger version of one of those bikes you see hammering through the north African desert regions on the Dakar Rally. It's a big, powerful machine and while it seems to weigh a ton (I'm in terror of it falling over because I doubt if I could lift it back upright), it moves effortlessly and gracefully.
The day I borrowed my bike, we rode from the northside of Dublin south through the city. Tony wanted to stop on Upper O'Connell Street.
"Why?" I asked.
"Have to get my picture taken for my free travel pass."
Tony is 66 but has recovered well from his heart attack. I'm 54. And we tell our children to be sensible . . .
Next: Rosslare to Cherbourg to Vezelay, and perhaps a detour to Cluny, the great medieval abbey whose influence popularised the Santiago pilgrimage 1,000 years ago
