Saturday, June 27, 2009

Friday, June 26, 2009

The Central Hotel. Wow.

Yesterday, after completing a bus tour of Belfast I took a train back to Dublin.

I booked a room at Dublin's Central Hotel. Color me impressed; I'm in a nice big room with a great view, big bed, and free wifi in the rooms. All right next to the Temple Bar area. After I woke up, I even decided to extend my stay. All at less than $100. WooT!

With this extra time not traveling I'm going to fix the bike and ride Phoenix Park.

From Public Dog

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

When life gives you Bacon, make Baconnaise

So I've been out of the country for about a week now; sorry for the lack of updates, but there is pretty spotty (free) wifi out here.

I started out in Dublin, and have since worked my way up the coast to Belfast. As a whole, I've enjoyed the trip. But my Bike Friday folding bike has some issues.
1) Homeland security screwed up my shifters somewhat, giving me use of only 4 upper gears on my rear cassette. And the bike store in Dublin I bought replacements for give me the wrong length cable-it's too short. And I can't find a bike store around here.

2) My trailer has lost a clip that prevents the right wheel from falling off. I've rigged up a replacement but who know how long that will last.

This, along with the long cycle times 6-7 hours, has prevented me from really enjoying my trip. I haven't seen anything I haven't cycled past(although some of that is very beautiful), and that's a shame.

So I think I'm going to adjust my goals so they are congruent with what will bring me joy and I'll pack up the bike, and just backpack around for the most part from now on. There is plenty of good biking at home.

Tomorrow, I'm planning on spending the night at this working farm. I'm not sure what to expect, but a local turned me on to it. I'm hoping it will be nice. I bet there won't be any internet.

Friday, June 19, 2009

The first mile...

Or time to stop feeling like a fraud.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Goodbye America. Hello Dublin

So I arrived in Dublin today. Dublin is confusing, as always...I'm pretty sure I'd lose myself here, if I wasn't attached.

On the flight here, I was placed in first class. It was awesome, but it's still tough to sleep on a plane. So I'm pretty lagged.

Today the plan is to walk around and take some pictures, reacquaint myself with Ireland's rules of the road by rereading some of my 'Cycling Ireland' book, and to secure lodgings for myself for the next 3 or 4 nights.