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Off to Ireland for xmas with the inlaws - need somes suggestions for a days escape please. Happy to travel up to a couple of hours by car. Anyone know of any decent trails? Nothing too hard mind as I'll have a relative newbie in tow.
edit:will be based nr duncannon (hook peninsular)
Cheers
I would've said come north to Rostrevor, Tollymore/Donnard and Castlewellan, but it might be a bit far.
Maybe [url= http://bikeparkireland.ie/ ]Bike Park Ireland[/url], but that's quite far too.
Ballyhoura, Ballinastoe or ticknock (in that order) would be your best.
If you fancy a longer drive north then the ones eltonerino mentioned above.
All of those would suit both of you.
Shouldn't be too hard to get to Wicklow/Dublin form there, so there's Ticknock or Ballinastoe - those are the "official" ones, plenty more besides.
http://www.dublinmountains.ie/recreation_sites/ticknock_mtb_trails/
http://www.trailbadger.com/trails/dublin-and-wicklow/ballinastoe-mtb-centre
Check out the trailbadger website for other ideas...
Ballyhoura trail centre in Limerick or Ballinastoe trail centre in Wicklow are good if you have a beginner with you. My preference would be Ballyhoura as the trails are longer. Having said that, the riding in Wicklow is amazing if you can find the good stuff. Biking.ie do tours which I would highly recommend.
Enjoy!
Cant recommend ballyhoura enough, look it up. Its my local trail. Choice of loops from about 45mins up to 4.5hrs. The white loop is my usual. Its about 2hrs drive though from waterford / wexford
Hummm, you are not really all that close to anything down there… Do you have a Satnav (road or bike type?)
I’d get in touch with Racing795 – Road and MTB crew based around bunclody which isn’t too far away from you, their XC race course is excellent and there is a lot of other stuff around Mt Leinster that they know of.
Other clubs in that neck of the woods (ish) are MBCC (cork), I know they have trails in the Galty mountains, which isn’t too far from you.
MBUL (limerick) – 99% sure they don’t go towards Tipp very often (more Lough Derg neck of the woods), but Robert on there has millions of trails on Garmin which might be of use.
Ballyhoura is great (some longer trails but chat on MBUL for linking together properly), not too far from you, N24 isn’t a bad road – easy enough to overtake on most of it, just hope that you don’t Miss daisy afraid to overtake some tractor and then another 10 cars behind – I think it’s probably your best bet though.
After that you are looking at trails off the N11 such as (in closeness/ease)
Carrick Mt (Glenealy town, mainly Enduro trails, but doable as an XC head), needs a guide though.
Glen of the Downs (Brill beginners/fun trails, and a couple of class xc runs), probably get away without a guide.
Ballinstoe – purpose built trails which are nice (well designed, good trailhead support there), 20 min drive from N11 though.
Ticknock – more purpose built trails (not so well designed and no trailhead support) –furthest away from you too (but loads of other trails and would be easier to get a guide from a club like MAD/EPIC/IMBRC).
If downhill is your thing, there is a cracker of a track(s) in Wexford at Bree
Thanks for all the replies - a bit of reading to do there - looks like we should find something for a decent days riding.