The plan was to spin rhythmically in the lowest gear through the valley of Glencree and gently upwards in the direction of the Sally Gap, then roll on across towards the banks of the Glenmacnass river, and from there down as far as Laragh with just the sweet evening breeze for company.
Even the creaky cyclist manqué within me can only lounge around watching the Tour de France for so long before surrendering to that irresistible urge to get back out there on the bike. In these, finally, warm summer evenings this much I know to be true.
Besides this year’s Tour is effectively over already even before Friday’s stage seven and the first mountain finish at La Super Planche des Belles Filles. Unless Tadej Pogacar crashes violently off his bike the new Cannibal will be wearing le maillot jaune all the way to the Champs-Élysées come the fourth Sunday of the month. A third successive Tour victory beckons – Pogacar’s win in stage six off the fourth-fastest average speed in race history – and he’s still only 23, remember.
Friday’s win was properly mental, the young Slovenian utterly smashing it once the nice tarmac turned to gravel up that last decisive stretch. Trust in him or not this is a rider who can clearly handle the smooth and the rough in equal measure.
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Nonetheless it has been a spectacular first week of racing, the opening three stages in Denmark marked by the extraordinary number of spectators on the side of the road, or indeed for those of us watching more closely, the quality of the road surface, as if all freshly laid with only the road cyclist in mind. Most of those not on the road were watching at home, a record audience of over one million – an average of 78 per cent market share – tuning in on Danish TV.
Things did change come the bitter sting and dust of the fabled pavé on Wednesday’s stage five from Lille to Wallers-Arenberg. Even the pros know it’s not always pretty or sunny out there and the same goes for those of us who like to cycle for the sheer pleasure of it.
Some of which was in mind on Thursday evening, the sun laughing in the French doors, prompting my first getaway in weeks truly deep into the Garden of Ireland. It was all going well towards the Sally Gap – always a bit of a misnomer as there is no obvious sign or even sense of a gap – only from there things suddenly turned horrible and hazardous.
This being a part of the original Wicklow Military Road, which since the wake of the 1798 Rebellion has been running the 58km from Rathfarnham in Dublin, beginning with the first notable ascent up towards Killakee and then slowly stretching along the roof of the Wicklow Mountains, from the Sally Gap to Laragh and down as far as the last of the old barracks at Aghavannagh, quickly leaving the city and everything else behind in silent miniature.
Built between 1801 and 1809, in the immediate aftermath of the 1798 Rebellion, the original purpose of this road was twofold: to enable British troops to quickly infiltrate the remote highlands and to restrict the ability of the Wicklow rebels to move unseen. At first any non-military personnel who wanted to travel the route had to obtain a permit of transit from the barrack master in Dublin: there were no cyclists in mind back then, over 200 years later someone might have given some consideration.
There is still an old sign which says this roughly 20km stretch of the road can be impassable in winter – though just over 500m above sea level it is extremely exposed – and just beyond the Sally Gap now there are some signs warning of road works ahead. It might even be closed off to vehicular traffic during the day, but my warning to cyclists is to avoid this stretch of road for at least another month unless you want to be on the rivet and the rim even when in that spinning rhythm, the rest of your cycling season suddenly flashing inside the frightened whites of your own eyes.
Right now long stretches of the road are either freshly spilt with a layer of what is politely termed as loose chippings, or else fresh scraped back in preparation for this lethal topping. It’s a terribly beautiful shame because lined only in parts by rows of dancing foxglove and sweet blooming ferns and the oddly magnificent spear thistle, it’s hard to beat the steady rush of pleasure and adrenaline which comes with each swerving incision straight through this heart of the Wicklow Mountains National Park, some 20,483 hectares in all, the largest of Ireland’s six national parks.
Instead of being enchanted by the first face of Carrigvore and Luggala Mountain and the rounded top of far-off Tonelagee – this road once nicely smooth in parts, our own little slice of The Stelvio Pass – all the focus is on the blinding sight of the thick-bundled loose chippings now very, very loosely scattered on parts of the road surface below, and which instantly demanded all of my amateur bike-handling skills to avoid our violent embrace. With nothing between my body skin and their crumpled shrapnel-like wounding but a jersey and shorts the width of one-ply toilet tissue, there could only be one loser.
If Eamon Ryan’s electric bike would get him up this far he might want to check out the hazard for himself. Some of us have been riding these hilly back roads around the county for many years and well used to Wicklow County Council playing their game of risk with this sometimes lethally dangerous manner of road improvements; others might not be so forewarned.
Typically marked in near advance with nothing more than a small orange sign displaying a car spraying loose chippings from its wheels, any safety concerns for the cyclist seems redundant too, or is that just us to worry about?
The first two stretches or improvements are bad enough; the last stretch of loose chippings comes just after the 80m drop from the Glenmacnass waterfall towards the flat green valley below and if that alone doesn’t take out a rider the sudden fear surely will. That’s assuming you don’t get a bloody puncture.
All this may bed in eventually, by the end of summer perhaps, only for now and a few more weeks at least this rooftop getaway in Wicklow is rendered impassable due to hazardous road improvements better described as a minefield.
Do not attempt to come near under any reasonable circumstances without feeling poised for some violent embrace between rider and road, all within the rough and none of the smooth.
