Traveling, where to ride

[courtofsoy]

I'll be visiting Ireland from California in January and I was hoping I could be pointed in the right direction of the best places to ride.

I'm a downhill rider, but will be with friends who aren't as tough ;) so any scenic trail recs would be appreciated.

Also, best bike shops to visit and rent gear?

Cheers,

Courtney

[Fergal]

drop us a line here and we'll look after you when you get here
we are an xc club ourselves

check the links to bike shops here:
http://www.madmtb.com/photogallery/links/

[courtofsoy]

Thanks for your response

I'm used to pulling teeth out here in order to get reciprocity around finding new bike mates.

From reading other posts on the forum, it looks like there aren't many "posted" trails...most have to be shown. Is this correct?

I'll be traveling from Dublin, how hard is it going to be to meet up with a group?

[TomH]

Yep your right there, only about 5% of the trails are waymarked...they are what's known as official trails...the other 95% are unofficial and have been made by regular joe's like ourselves...

...Like Fergal has said contact ourselves before you arrive and someone will show you the trails, Fergal has built about 90% of them so he'll defo be able to...

[Scrivo]

I've heard 68% of all statistics are made up ;)

[ciaranc]

20 % of Americans think Europe is a country :D

[Fergal]

99.98% of Ciaran's posts are gibberish :)

[ciaranc]

and 99.98 % of Mad think Fergal wears those yellow hot pants for fun :D:D:D

[Conor]

100% of us are pissed off with statistics!!

[courtofsoy]

has anyone taken advantage of the Aer Lingus policy of free bike passage on transatlantic flights? Seems too good to be true!! I won't be doing that this time, but def want to look in to for the future.

best place to rent a bike?

[ryan]

I regularly fly with my bike Transatlantic (indeed, flying with Aer Lingus to San Francisco tomorrow). My advice would be to take you own bike unless you plan to spend most of the trip away from the bike.

You will usually find somewhere safe enough to lock up the thing at hostels/hotels/guesthouses. (Just take good locks)