Well, I'd been warned but Ireland still came as a bit of a surprise. The OS maps for Ireland don't contain as much detail as UK OS maps, so I assumed that all the tracks and trails that in the UK would criss cross the mountains were simply missing from the maps ... I was wrong, the maps are very accurate - the tracks and trails are just missing full stop!

The idea was a very simple one ... get off the ferry, ride into the Wicklow Mountains national park and see where we ended up. A couple of hours after getting off the ferry we were sat outside a cafe in a lovely village eating cake. The road we were following out of the village was called Long Hill, so legs primed we set off only to discover that it wasn't really a long hill at all, more a steady undulation ... Dee was quite happy about that. I'd planned to spend the night somewhere in the forestry but everytime we reached a plantation there were very large warning signs. Each sign explaining in great detail all the things you couldn't do in the forests, after carefully studying the signs it became obvious that breathing was possibly the only thing you wouldn't get in trouble for. We took the only sensible course of action we could and spent the night in there anyway



Within half an hour the dormant midges made their presence felt, so we were very much at home.



Next morning we continued our quest in search of the stuff OS forgot to put on their maps and within 20 minutes came across a trail centre. Again, there was quite a long list of things you couldn't do on the trails and one of them was ride any bike that didn't have 26" wheels!



The day continued in the same vain ... riding on tarmac lanes and reading signs that told you ' NO YOU CAN'T - BUGGER OFF'. At one point I did think we'd struck gold ... a local bloke told us about 'The Green Road' which ran alongside a lake and would bypass a fairly busy stretch of main road. I found the start of it and was greeted by more big signs! Always believing that it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission we set off down it. We were able to ride the entire 3 miles without killing anyone, stealing someones property or fly-tipping (something the Irish appear to have a real problem with).



At the end of this magical track was an old quarry and heading off up into the hills was a superb looking track, rocky, steep and steppy but guess what? More signs ... I decided I'd be taking the piss if I took a bike up it, so decided to walk up there instead ... how I wished I'd had a bike, I'm convinced that the same track anywhere in the UK would be a bridleway.

I'm sorry to say that nothing changed for the remainder of our time, it's as though the mountains are closed. Every gate I saw was chained (even if it just went into an empty field), every inch of open land had private/no entry signs and nearly all the mountains appear to have no tracks on them, not even private tracks ... it's as though the countryside is dead, there doesn't even appear to be much farming takes place. I know we all moan about access but we really don't know how lucky we are

Yep, Scotland's got it right, freedom to roam, freedom to camp, even on a bike. I'm surprised someone like the CTC hasn't campaigned for access to footpaths for cyclists. If the Ramblers association can win freedom to roam then why not more access for cyclists.

To be honest Ray from what I saw there didn't seem much access for walkers either. In the UK it's easy to feel that you're actually 'in the mountains'. In Ireland it felt that you were somehow kept away from them and could only view them from a distance.

The only time that I really felt that I was amongst the hills was a night spent above the Wicklow Gap. I'd had to tow Dee up part of it as her knees had pretty much given up, it had just started raining and the wind was rising. I'd spotted what looked like a flattish pitch half a mile off the road, so once again I ignored the signs and went for it, luckily it turned out well ... this is the view from it, just like home really

sounds like you made the most of (i.e. ignored the signs) a tricky situation.

i spent a few days riding around some nice countryside west of Cork of few years back and after finding no information about trails/bikes/paths anywhere i just went out and rode what i found irrespective of legality.

i had no hassle but i also saw a lot of threatening signs.

weird!

Stu - what a shame. The ex_IMBA guy I've dealt with over there has told me the odd horror story about the access problems but what a bugger.

As for the Right to Roam, and other comments Ray, I'm not sure how much you know about access history, law or advocacy and I don't want to be sanctimonious or patronising (there's STW for that ) but it's just, sadly, so much more complicated than that.

Well in reality it's simple - English/Welsh access law is cobblers and it should be a free for all / based on specific exclusion of inappropriate traffic which in turn would be based on realistic and appropriate criteria, not irrelevant historical precedents. Easy (ish) to say, blimmin' hard to achieve :evil:

"i just went out and rode what i found irrespective of legality."

Yeah I did this for 11 years in Tipperary where I lived, not that there was huge amounts. I had a cross bike I rode there alot as much of it was just fireroads.

My wife found it even more frustraiting with a horse

Midges you say?

Knew a girl from northern Ireland, she did DoE in the mountains of Mourne, and couldn't believe how easy our mountains were with paths and bridalways, evidently they don't have such things over the Irish sea!

Ray Young wrote:Yep, Scotland's got it right, freedom to roam, freedom to camp, even on a bike. I'm surprised someone like the CTC hasn't campaigned for access to footpaths for cyclists. If the Ramblers association can win freedom to roam then why not more access for cyclists.

Sorry I didn't make it clear, I was talking about Wales/UK.