Cycling – Hors Catégorie

Coffeeneuring: the Aftermath of Ashley

Coastline arcing around a bay under cloudy skies, headlands barely visible through the mist in the distance — From swerve of shore to bend of bay…the view from Vico Road.

There were a couple of fine days in the wake of storm Ashley, and I rode out on Tuesday morning under blue skies. For reasons opaque in retrospect, I decided to take on Cupidstown Hill en route to Naas, crawling up its 18% ramp in a minuscule gear. Barry O’Driscoll used Cupidstown for an Everesting, climbing it 75 times over the course of thirteen hours, which surely earned him a plenary indulgence…my modest single ascent merited nothing more indulgent than an espresso and a flapjack at PS Coffee Roasters. The barista regaled me with his childhood memories of going mountain biking with his dad, but admitted that surfing was his sport these days. Evidently lugging a surfboard to Sligo is more fun than climbing Ticknock on a full suspension mountain bike.

By Thursday the wind was picking up again. Feeling lazy, I took the road south along the Dublin coast to examine Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown’s latest “innovations” in cycling infrastructure. I took the morning cafe stop at Hatch Coffee in Glasthule where they squandered points by checking whether I wanted my espresso “for here”, then handing it to me in a paper cup regardless. I sat outside, watching mourners streaming out of the church across the road, thinking back to my grandmother’s funeral and carrying her coffin from Quinn’s funeral home up the street to that same church.

I grew up in Sandycove: the poles of my book-obsessed childhood were the library at the bottom of York Road in Dun Laoghaire to the north, my grandmother’s bookshop in Bray to the south. The equator was Eamonn’s Bookshop in Sandycove village, which I visited any time I had ten or twenty pence to my name, in the hopes that a hitherto unknown Famous Five or Biggles book might have appeared on its shelves. I was pleased to see that it still endures, and Eamonn himself too, if the white-haired gentleman sitting at the front of the shop was he.

Despite the bookish tone of my reminiscences, I bypassed the Martello tower that was home to Buck Mulligan and Stephen Daedalus in favour of a straight run through Dalkey and up the Vico Road to Killiney, the vaunted resemblance to the Bay of Naples diminished by the grey skies and choppy water. The wind was at my back as I cut inland to Kilternan and Tibradden before dropping back down into the city.

Coffeeneuring: Strawberry Beds and Self-Deception

Bicycle leaning against a wooden picnic table, outdoor coffee shop in the background — Mugg Uggly, Hallowe’en appropriate

With the hour changing next weekend, it’s time to put the good bike away for the winter — dry roads are already a distant memory, and every ride leaves a rime of grit and leaf mould on the drivetrain. Last Sunday I pulled the fixed-gear out of the shed, chipped away the thick crust of agricultural filth remaining from the spring, and drenched the chain in thick, green lubricant.

The following day I took it for a shake-out ride along the Strawberry Beds. Hugging the north bank of the Liffey, it’s a beautiful stretch of road, the slow-moving river glinting in the sunshine. Nonetheless, I rarely ride it because, in a remarkable feat of road engineering, the council have managed to squeeze no fewer than twenty-six speed bumps into a distance of 2.5km, with another four as an amuse-bouche when you join the road at the Knockmarroon Hill. The velvet smoothness of the tarmac in between them comes more as a taunt than a relief.

Gingerly checking that I still had all my teeth, I stopped into Coffee Works in Lucan village. It was fairly thrumming with activity on a Monday morning, the tables inside and out filled with people deep in conversation. Points awarded for checking whether I wanted the espresso in a ceramic cup (yes, always yes…espresso is a paper cup is an offence in the eyes of God) and giving me a glass of water to accompany it. The roast (courtesy of Groundwork from Celbridge) was a bit dark for my taste, but their hearts are clearly in the right place and I finished the rest of the ride with a song in my heart.

I suspect many Dubliners are unaware of quite how much the city is sheltered from rain and wind by the arc of mountains to the south-west. But every cyclist knows that no matter how sunny and still it may be when you leave your house, thirty minutes later you can be battling through sideways rain against a malevolent wind bent on your destruction. If you can feel the breeze down in the city, it’ll be a gale up at Sally Gap.

Thus it was with some trepidation that I watched the wind merrily tossing the leaves around the back garden as I ate my breakfast on Thursday morning. I headed up Stocking Lane more in hope than expectation, the calm in the lee of the hill offering fertile ground for self-deception. But there was no hiding from the truth when I got to the Featherbeds, unpredictable gusts aggressively shoving the handlebars left and right. I staged a tactical retreat down the Glencree valley.

There was a long line at the Bear Paw in Enniskerry (more power to them) so I pushed on to Mugg Uggly. Tucked away behind Glencairn LUAS stop, Mugg Uggly is an oasis of conviviality in a desert of blank suburban roads and newbuild apartment blocks. Screened by trees and high walls, you could imagine yourself far outside the city, the roar of the traffic a muted and distant. The espresso was good enough that I can overlook (if not entirely forgive) the paper cup and the terrible name. While these autumn days stay mild enough to sit outside, it’s hard to imagine a better place to stop.

Coffeeneuring: A Dreadful Litany

Cup of coffee and slice of cheesecake with whipped cream, sitting on a copper-topped table — Double espresso and salted caramel cheesecake at Roundwood Stores

Proverbially, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But a journey of a mere sixty kilometres starts with a double espresso. It’s important to set a baseline for quality when embarking on a research project as rigorous as the 2024 Coffeeneuring Challenge, and Five Points is always my point of departure.

My lab assistant for the first ride was Rider’s Bloc. In recent years the block has become systemic, and he gets out on the bike only marginally more often than he posts on his blog, so we took it pretty easy on the way out to Blessington. Befitting two men in their middle years, 90% of the conversation went along these lines:

— do you know so-and-so?
— I don’t think so
— right. Well, she has cancer

and so on in a dreadful litany of terminal diagnoses, and distant acquaintances who woke up one morning dead as a doornail. “Sniper alley,” he commented sagely, “that’s where we are.” Only the offer of some cholesterol- and carcinogen-laden cake could prise him away from the subject of mortality and our precarious purchase on life.

We pulled into an unprepossessing driveway, signposted Brew 21. I was half-expecting yet another coffee truck, but no, past some picnic tables arrayed on an astroturf lawn I found the entrance to a sizeable cafe. The bar is straight out of the 3FE playbook: Victoria Arduino espresso machine, Puq Press automatic tamper etc. Decent espresso, but one star deducted for serving it in a paper cup. And the astroturf. We returned to the city warmed by the rare October sun.

I was solo on the second ride this week, a return visit to Roundwood Stores. Again the sun was out, but in the two days intervening the temperature had dropped by ten degrees and it was barely above freezing when I left Harold’s Cross. The reason for this became apparent when I left the warmth and bourgeois comfort of the cafe to head home, and spent the next two hours battling into a biting northerly. The brisk pace I set on the way to Roundwood should have tipped me off, but the delusional part of your brain always wants to think it’s that you have good legs, that you’re in great shape. Never that the wind might be behind you, waiting to sandbag you as soon as you change direction.

In the year since I first went there, Roundwood Stores has come to exercise a magnetic pull, dragging me in any time I pass within five kilometers of it. The coffee can be hit-or-miss, but the soups are invariably excellent, and the only thing that puts me off the rest of the menu is the massive portions…the drags over Ballinastoe and Djouce are all the more grinding after eating a slab of focaccia the size of your head.

Be Mine Tonight

Chasing Mailboxes announces the 14th annual Coffeeneuring Challenge. Last year I failed ignominiously after disappearing off to Le Guess Who with only five rides in the bag, and coming home too hungover to contemplate getting on the bike to finish it off. This year I will brook no failure.

Dean Roberts died a few months ago, far too young. He never seemed to receive the attention that his music deserved, despite releases on labels as storied as Mille Plateaux, Kranky, and Erstwhile. He probably tired of the comparisons with Mark Hollis and Talk Talk, but I can think of few artists who could bear the comparison so well, whose music matched that taut-nerved tension and haunted beauty.

<a href="https://deanrobertsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/and-the-black-moths-play-the-grand-cinema">And the Black Moths Play the Grand Cinema by Dean Roberts</a>

Philip Sherburne’s comprehensive retrospective at Futurism Restated has disappeared behind the paywall, but Tone Glow and the Wire have reposted old interviews.

The Firing Range (5.1km, 375m, 7.3%)

Strava

The climb to the Firing Range at Kilbride army camp is my favourite training climb, five kilometres sustained effort, much of it along a quiet, well-paved road. Although it’s a fraction of the length of the marquee climbs in the Alps, the gradients and smooth asphalt are comparable.

The first couple of kilometers follow the Ballinascorney climb. Near the summit, bear left onto the slip road (signposted for the Lodge, L7462) and stay left past the Famine Cross. The road levels out for a few hundred meters, then ramps up after a small bridge, briefly hitting double-digit gradients before settling at 8–9%. As the trees give way to open land on the left, the gradient eases and you can gear up for the short ramp to the top.

The road is narrow enough at points that cars will struggle to pass, but it’s little used and during the week you can expect to have it entirely to yourself. Settle into the climb and enjoy the ambient soundtrack provided by streams, insects, birds and sheep, and maybe the odd burst of gunfire.

Stone cross on a grassy knoll, commemorating the dead of the Great Famine — The Famine Cross

Wicklow Gap (W) (5.5km, 221m, 3.9%)

Strava

The western approach to Wicklow Gap is undeniably the less attractive option. It lacks any clear starting point: arguably the R756 starts to rise eleven kilometres away, at the bridge across the King’s River below the Hollywood hills, but only when you’re halfway to the Gap does the gradient become visible. You’re definitely already climbing by the time you reach the Quintagh turn-off, but it offers one of the few obvious landmarks on a long, wide road.

For all that road is wide, the lower reaches of the climb are closed in by trees and hillside, and there’s no view to speak of until you’re close to the top, the ground falling away to your right revealing the line of pylons leading up to the ESB station. By then the hardest parts of the climb are behind you, and you can pick up speed as you approach the summit.

For all that, it’s a good climb for early in the year. By whatever quirk of local climate, conditions around Wicklow Gap are generally more forgiving than Sally Gap — you’re less exposed to the gales which in any case funnel up the valley, pushing you up the road. As the main east-west route across the mountains, the road is well-maintained and gets enough sun that frost clears quickly. The gradient is never severe, maxing out at 8–9%, and it’s long enough an effort to build endurance when you’re laying down your base miles.

But the reward really comes with the descent to Laragh on the other side: a wide-open road that swings smoothly around the mountainside, offering clear visibility of any approaching traffic. It’s largely free of potholes and gravel, and confident descenders will take it like a luge run.

A wide road rising and swing left over a mountain pass under scattered cloud — The final metres…the barely visible signposts mark the top

PS Coffee Roasters

Gloves, cup of espresso and water on a glass-topped table with fliers for events under the glass — Yes, that is a flyer for a Bay City Rollers tribute band, supported by a Smokie tribute band

Ride distance: 71km
Beverage: espresso, naturally

I rushed to get a ride in on Monday in advance of storm Ciarán, though in the end the storm tracked north of Dublin and it seems that Newry took the brunt of it. Either way, it was no bad day to sweat out the excesses of the long weekend, cold and damp but clear skies and little wind.

Naas is, notoriously, a terrible place, but I could have finessed my entry to the town a little better than coming straight in on the Blessington Road, a narrow country road built for traffic a fraction of what it sees now. The relief when the road finally widens enough for cars to pass comfortably is tempered by the procession of identikit housing estates on the outskirts of the town.

Still, once you get onto the main street, it’s a bustling place. Turn onto the road for Sallins and PS Coffee Roasters is tucked neatly into the corner of a brutalist concrete block on the right. On previous occasions, the espresso in the Naas branch hasn’t matched the standard set by their roastery in Clane, but this shot was excellent: thick, savoury, complex. Good coffee, nice presentation, comfortable couch, early Daft Punk on the stereo…what more could you ask?

On the way home, I took the quieter route past the race course, admiring the modest residences of the humble folk of Kildare.

Staute atop a high clumn in front of a country house — A typical Kildare lawn ornament

Storyboard

An expanse of parkland, a thin layer of mist hanging above the grass, sun peeping through the trees — The last of the morning mist in Phoenix Park

Ride distance: 57km
Beverage: espresso

I spent an hour on Tuesday fettling the fixed-gear: swapping pedals, fitting the rack for the saddlebag, tensioning the chain. Slathering each link of the chain with wet lube, thick as olive oil but a lurid, chemical green that no sane person would put in their mouth. Then the rest of the day watching the rain, heavy showers building to a steady downpour. The following day, the shakedown ride: a couple of hours on flat roads, nothing hectic, classic winter riding.

I slipped out through the back door to the city, the gates of Phoenix Park at Farmleigh. The closed roads around the perimeter of the park attract an odd cross-section of cyclists, from nervous wrecks and invalids too frail for the open roads to headbangers in full TT rig out for some heads down, no nonsense, mindless boogie. Even the Prince of Darkness himself once put in three laps of the circuit, shelling star-struck wheelsuckers with each charge up the Khyber Pass.

From there, the rat-run along the walls of Luttrellstown, low buzz of tension from impatient drivers skirting the M50 toll gates, until I hit open countryside behind Westmanstown. Along the R149, a hedgerow where every single tree had been felled in the recent storms. The rusted but ornate gates and crumbling walls of once great estates. The towers of the Intel plant visible in the distance. Fields raising the annual winter crop of grey-brown mud. The flats stretch to the horizon, all the long, steady miles you can eat. Three hours is usually plenty, four a hard maximum.

On the way back into town, I stopped in Islandbridge for coffee at Storyboard. Storyboard is a rare stop for me, awkwardly placed: heading out, I’m just getting warmed up; coming home, the attraction of hot water applied externally usually trumps that of hot coffee applied internally. But it’s a nice café in the modern, well-lit, minimalist style — even the exposed ductwork in the ceiling looks clean, deliberate. Decent espresso, Dungarees blend from Farmhand, a Dublin roastery that was new to me. I must be less stand-offish this winter.

Interior of cafe, showing the counter with menu on blackboard behind it, exposed pipes in the roof, a small pile of pumpkins on the floor — Post-industrial chic at Storyboard

Square

Road passing alongside a horse race course under partly clouded skies — The Curragh under big skies

Ride distance: 115km
Beverage: double espresso, with a flapjack on the side

A few days of cold, bright weather before storm Babet rolls through. Everything looks uncannily sharp and clear through the cold, dry air, absent the haze that usually hangs over the mountains. The compass swings in winter, away from the mountains and west towards the flatter land of Kildare and Meath. The world contracts as rides get shorter, start later, the grey gloom of the mornings uninviting. There’s a perpetual sheen of moisture on the roads, decaying leaves carpeting the ground—cornering is treacherous, fast descents a gamble. More often I go out on the fixed gear, to preserve expensive derailleurs from the corrosion of road salt and the constant abrasion of the mud.

The route to Kildare town is quintessential winter cycling: one main road climb up Ballinascorney, a scatter of foothills around Ballymore Eustace and Kilteel, and the rest is flat. From Brannockstown onwards the smell of wealth rises off a procession of stud farms, luxury cars, expansive mansions. The run back from Kildare to the city passes by the racecourses at the Curragh (where 20,000 gathered to watch Dan Donnelly fight in 1814) and Punchestown. The Curragh should be easy, a pan-flat run under open skies, but there’s no escape from the wind, and it’s a relief to turn onto the gently undulating roads after Athgarvan.

I took my cafe stop at Square, an archetypal modern coffee shop, all hard surfaces and European minimalism, well-lit and attractive but not really cosy. They did me wrong once or twice during the pandemic years, serving me espresso in a paper cup, but all is forgiven as this shot arrives in a small ceramic vase that sits nicely in the hand. Decent espresso too, house branded but roasted by PS Coffee Roasters. I would have murdered a sandwich or a bowl of thick soup but only sweet things on the menu, had to settle for a flapjack—I was hanging by the time I got home. Still, well worth a visit if you’re passing through Kildare.

Round tower silhouetted on a hillside under cloudy skies — The round tower at Old Kilcullen graveyard

Roundwood Stores

Ride distance: 87km
Beverage: one espresso, accompanied by an excellent sandwich

The weather was still absurdly warm as I headed out the following day on my second coffeenée (is that a word? it is now) of the week. Haze softened the autumn sunlight as I climbed to Sally Gap, light breezes playing over my bare arms, strands of spider silk hanging in the slow-moving air. At this time of year, I’d often be bidding farewell to the Gap for the year, farewell to the gales and drizzle and bone-chilling descents. But not in 2023.

Following the Military Road down past Glenmacnass waterfall to Laragh, I turned back towards Roundwood. Around Annamoe, Wicklow County Council were hard at work eliminating the last remaining stretches of smooth asphalt in the county. One can only imagine that an influential member of the Council also owns a gravel quarry — they’d gravel-dress the M11 given half a chance.

I stopped at the Roundwood Stores, where the tasteful choice of font on the signage advertising “Artisan Grocery” betokens the kind of bourgeois luncheon experience I’m looking for in a cafe. The yellow wall hides a sunlit courtyard with enough space to stash your bike. I ordered an espresso and a croque monsieur — a blackboard on the counter reassured the Plain People of Ireland that they were being threatened with nothing more exotic than an ham-and-cheese toastie.

The croque monsieur was the Platonic ideal of a toasted sandwich, the thick bread grilled to a golden-red, crisped in the fat running off the cheese and thickly sliced ham. The espresso, on the other hand, was deeply odd. I can best describe it as a hazelnut praline emulsion — thick and finely aerated, but no hint of coffee to the flavour whatsoever. I’ve had a lot of weird, funky shots over the years, but this was a new one on me. Still, it was nowhere near enough to ruin the pleasure of eating a good lunch in the sunshine.

Sadly, once it was done I had to climb back on the bike and waddle the thirty kilometres home.