!Jones wrote: > Looking for a good shop in Dublin. The wife wants to go to the Old > Country this summer, so... do I have a choice? (I wanted to go to > Madison.)
> Actually, we need a tandem because she's handicapped; however, that's > asking much, IMO.
> Jones
Here is an article on cycling in Ireland for tourists I wrote for the magazine Inside Ireland a few years ago: http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20Bicycling%20in%20Irelan... It also list shops that will rent you a bike and a direct link to the biggest bicycle tour operator in Ireland.
Now for some inside gen. Pay close attention to what I say about our major roads. Traffic moves at least 20mph faster than in the States, and on far narrower roads, and some drivers have never seen a cyclist.
Your best bet if you really want a *tour* is probably to buy a package (bikes and accommodation) cycling holiday from experienced tour operators like Celtic, net address in the article. If a tandem is available, they will be able to get it for you. (Be sure your wife will make the daily distance; there are no flat roads in Ireland; the riders on the recent Tour of Ireland bitched bitterly about the hills.)
That list of bike rental places I refer you to is no doubt optimistic; my local LBS is on it and anytime he has offered me a courtesy bike I've preferred to walk rather than ride some POS off his scrapheap; you can forget about renting a tandem unless you get very lucky indeed. The rental costs in the article has not been updated...
In Ireland, incidentally, unless travelling on expenses, one doesn't as a first choice book into hotels but into the government-approved guest houses (you find them in a book you buy as you come off the plane, or on the net); they're cheaper and friendlier and very helpful indeed. (One of my pedalpals runs the best one locally; she knows which roads are good and safe and which aren't.) Forget camping; the weather is so changeable, a camping holiday will be one long misery; nobody does it; there are no campsites for cyclists and it is even rare to see a motorhome or caravan.
Unless your wife has some kind of a schedule already (tracing her roots?), or unless you want to take in the major cultural institutions which essentially means Dublin, I would advise you not to try and cover the country but instead to choose some pretty little country town outside the major cities and book in for a few days, ride the lanes around the town to the historical or picturesque sites, eat in the restaurants and bars, spend your evenings listening to music in the bars, then move on to the next little town for another few days; often people who take this advice just decide to extend their stay in the first little town. That way you get a feeling for Ireland and its people which you don't from the rush of images and fleeting contacts of a "tour". That's what I do for my holiday, though it isn't a cycling holiday: I go stay in a town only an hour's drive away and go to a music festival, and take walks in the lanes thereabouts. I'd suggest my own town, Bandon, but it's a popular place, so you probably have to book well in advance.
If I were in your shoes, I'd try find some little town with good cycling on the lanes (don't worry about getting there -- we have superb train and bus services, and information about taking a bike on them is in the article referenced above) and book into a good guest house for three or four days with an option to extend in case you decide you like it too much to move on. Then try to rent known bikes; if good bikes aren't for rent, I'd just cut a deal with an LBS to buy a couple of new Trek mountain bikes with a guaranteed repurchase deal for say halfprice after the holiday, something like that; you would need to order the bikes in advance of arriving to be sure they're the right bikes, as the stock at the big city dealers is horridly expensive and the LBS in small towns may not have a huge selection of styles and sizes. You need to have your second little town picked out as either reachable by back roads or on the bus route but that isn't difficult. From Bandon for instance there is a big ring of pretty towns down the coast to Bantry and back up to Bandon that could consume a fortnight; there's a smaller ring the other way, to Kinsale. The same applies to virtually any other tourist center. Bandon is so popular among other reasons because it is only half an hour from the international airport at Cork; there is no need to waste time going to Dublin or Shannon (which is literally in the middle of nowhere; a very expensive place to get to and from).
To reach my private mailbox, lose the prime digit from my visible spambuster e-mail address.
Andre Jute Not speaking for the Tourist Board here!
On 7 nov, 02:34, !Jones <swsm...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Looking for a good shop in Dublin. The wife wants to go to the Old > Country this summer, so... do I have a choice? (I wanted to go to > Madison.)
> Actually, we need a tandem because she's handicapped; however, that's > asking much, IMO.
> Jones
Renting a tandem will be impossible I think in Dublin, in 5 years living there I have never seen one. For renting bicycles Cycleways, http://www.cycleways.com/ They are a decent shop close to the citycentre of Dublin.
On Nov 6, 6:34 pm, !Jones <swsm...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Looking for a good shop in Dublin. The wife wants to go to the Old > Country this summer, so... do I have a choice? (I wanted to go to > Madison.)
> Actually, we need a tandem because she's handicapped; however, that's > asking much, IMO.
> Jones
Dear J,
"We offer a full range of bikes, from kiddies, tag-alongs, tandems, mountain bikes, hybrids & racing bikes. Our bikes are all, 'Giant', made in Holland, and perfect for a few hours or a day's biking. Our fully experienced staff will guarantee you that your bike will be in perfect working order and help you in any way they can to make your biking experience with us a memorable one, for all the right reasons. We have a total of 120 bikes to choose from."
On Sat, 7 Nov 2009 00:59:26 -0800 (PST), in rec.bicycles.tech Chalo
<chalo.col...@gmail.com> wrote: >I have not yet rent a bicycle in Dublin. But I have rent a number of >bicycles. Some of them were completely sundered.
Yes, I have had that experience. That issue is even greater when one needs a tandem; we rented one in Bar Harbor, Maine a couple of years ago that simply wasn't safe to ride.
> >I have not yet rent a bicycle in Dublin. But I have rent a number of > >bicycles. Some of them were completely sundered.
> Yes, I have had that experience. That issue is even greater when one > needs a tandem; we rented one in Bar Harbor, Maine a couple of years > ago that simply wasn't safe to ride.
I was making a play on words, based on your use of the word "rend" (break apart) in the thread title. I read the title and thought, "hey, I do that".
The only bike I ever rented was a BikeE, because it was the only one I ever found for rent that could be adjusted to fit my size. It was educational, in that it taught me to avoid BikeEs and other similarly ill-conceived bikes from that time forward.
> > you can forget about renting a tandem unless you get very lucky > > indeed.
I simply misread the question; I thought Jones was using "Dublin" generically for Ireland. In Dublin itself a tandem is possible -- for instance from www.phoenixparkbikehire.com --but anywhere else it is less likely. My remarks were predicated on the knowledge that Dublin is a very tough city for a cyclist to escape onto friendlier roads (more below), and Jones's stated family circumstances. But it seems the tandem is for use in Dublin.
Repeat tourers that I meet on the road invariably put their bike on the bus or the train for the first part of the journey out of Dublin, and the really experienced fly in to Cork rather than Dublin or Shannon (I'm not even sure it is legal anymore for a bicycle to go on the road out of Shannon). Galway is another possibility; I met a couple of very experienced Scots (hamstrings from Hell, as Simon Schama said of the famous statue of William Wallace) on the road, separately, not together, who always start their tours in Galway. Actually, I find it odd that so few bicycle tourers -- I've never met one anyway -- arrive by the ferries (to Cork and Rosslare) which are easier to ship a bike by and which both decant cyclists in friendlier cycling environments than Dublin and Shannon.
I know, I know, when you toured Ireland by bike thirty years ago, or whatever, when even Krygo was young and Jesus was a teenager, you could cruise out of Dublin and hardly ever see a tractor; that rural Ireland was gone even before the Celtic Tiger. It's still very beautiful in the lanes but the main roads are full of large cars with drivers in a hurry and convoys of thundering trucks. The Garda (police) Superintendent, on whose advise I depended when I wrote that anyone but very experienced cyclists should stay the hell off the main roads, was himself later killed while taking his exercise on his bicycle, on a road I stopped cycling only six months or so before after deciding it wasn't fun to have a continuous row of trucks travelling 110kph twelve inches from your shoulder.
> Friends rented a Dawes Galaxy tandem in Ireland, which both surprised and > impressed me. Unfortunately I don't know where from.
Celtic, net address in my article to which I referred Jones, supplies Dawes bikes (apparently, now only to people who book tours with them; when the article was written they listed bare-bike rentals as well; it might still be worth a phone call). See near the bottom of http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20Bicycling%20in%20Irelan... note that Celtic isn't in Dublin. Nor do they advertise a tandem, though they no doubt know where to find one if a customer insists.
<paul.kaldenb...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 7 nov, 02:34, !Jones <swsm...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Looking for a good shop in Dublin. The wife wants to go to the Old > > Country this summer, so... do I have a choice? (I wanted to go to > > Madison.)
> > Actually, we need a tandem because she's handicapped; however, that's > > asking much, IMO.
> > Jones
> Renting a tandem will be impossible I think in Dublin, in 5 years > living there I have never seen one. > For renting bicycles Cycleways,http://www.cycleways.com/They are a > decent shop close to the citycentre of Dublin.
> Paul
In nearly twenty years of cycling around and about Bandon, one of the key Irish tourist centres and a chokepoint for the south-east of Ireland ("Gateway to beautiful West Cork"), I have never seen a tandem. Frankly, I think a tandem would be a nuisance in most of the Irish towns and cities one might want to visit, and in the lanes as well. Even my Utopia Kranich, wheelbase a not unreasonable 1149mm for such a comfortable bike, already pushes the boundaries of pavements, footbridges, narrow streets especially at the corners, and so on; I thought of buying a tandem because I have enough pedalpals always to have a stoker handy but decided the pure bulk of the thing would slow us down irritatingly, and force us unto dangerous bits of road that we normally give a miss. My Trek "Smover", on their standard (Benelux) Navigator frame, was already the biggest bike in town before the arrival of the Kranich, which is much bigger; the Trek is probably the biggest bike one can ride dashingly in small Irish towns, not that I regret having to smooth down my riding style on the Kranich -- its other attractions more than make up for the lack of nip and tuck which is anyway a bit undignified at my age. But the progression is a pointer to the utility of a tandem in Ireland. A tandem might be a s bit more usable in Dublin but I'm not surprised you've not seen one.
> Frankly, I think a tandem would be a nuisance in most of the > Irish towns and cities one might want to visit, and in the lanes as > well.
I've ridden tandems in many places, and the roads in Ireland presented no unusual problems at all. I've never heard an experienced tandem rider complaining that the size of a bike is a nuisance over there.
A bike that large may be a bit scary for somebody who's never ridden such a thing, but with experience they're plenty nimble enough. They can still comprehensively outmanouvre a car - I was even taking ours down gaps Italian scooter riders were unable to take.
> We're renting a microbus with a bed in it for most of the trip. We > don't like riding in groups and, no, my stoker isn't up to a full day > of hills.
> We're just interested in a Dublin sight-seeing day trip.
> But, thanks for the pointers.
> Jones
Dear Jones!
Phoenix appears to be ideal for your situation. However the pedals (essentially a modern version of ‘Rat Traps‘; read: ouch! on the shins) of that strange looking tandem pictured are potentially quite painful if a foot slips off the pedal. If your wife has a bicycle @ home; I would suggest you take her own pedals & possibly saddle w/ you. If her pedals are clip ins, take cycling shoes too. If she doesn’t have a bike @ home that she is confortable with, then ask Phoenix for a pair of rubber pedals. If you are going to wear helmets, I would definitely take my own for reasons of both fit & sanitation. And you, Mr. Jones, might want to do the same.
Best wishes for your trip.
P.S. I’m not sure if this idea would help or not; (please note that the tandem in image 3 of 60 is dirty, perhaps not a good sign) but you might want to send a good sized tip (the $$$ type) in advance for a bike that works reasonably well. I.E. lubricated, brake & cables that stop the bike, true wheels, cones adjusted , derailleur’s that shift effortlessly & accurately, etc. Also I noticed that the riders in some of the gallery appear to have the saddle height mis-adjusted. If the tandems don’t have quick release clamps, make sure that you get the height & straightness adjusted before leaving the shop.
On Mon, 9 Nov 2009 09:13:42 -0800 (PST), in rec.bicycles.tech Chalo
<chalo.col...@gmail.com> wrote: >I was making a play on words, based on your use of the word >"rend" (break apart) in the thread title. I read the title and >thought, "hey, I do that".
>The only bike I ever rented was a BikeE, because it was the only one I >ever found for rent that could be adjusted to fit my size. It was >educational, in that it taught me to avoid BikeEs and other similarly >ill-conceived bikes from that time forward.
>Chalo
Oh... that was a "fat finger"... I meant "rent".
I have heard that a pun (play on words) is the most intelligent form of humor... in that case, it's utterly lost on me. OTOH, you have Ed Dolan. What can I say?
Jones... above a sea slug; however, less than genius.
!Jones wrote: > On Mon, 9 Nov 2009 09:13:42 -0800 (PST), in rec.bicycles.tech Chalo > <chalo.col...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I was making a play on words, based on your use of the word >> "rend" (break apart) in the thread title. I read the title and >> thought, "hey, I do that".
>> The only bike I ever rented was a BikeE, because it was the only one I >> ever found for rent that could be adjusted to fit my size. It was >> educational, in that it taught me to avoid BikeEs and other similarly >> ill-conceived bikes from that time forward.
>> Chalo
> Oh... that was a "fat finger"... I meant "rent".
> I have heard that a pun (play on words) is the most intelligent form > of humor... in that case, it's utterly lost on me. OTOH, you have Ed > Dolan. What can I say?
> Jones... above a sea slug; however, less than genius.
You know, it took me until just now to realize the typo and I was about to post something like "I've never kept a bike long enough, they've all been stolen before they were rent" but I see it's already well under control.
> > We're renting a microbus with a bed in it for most of the trip. We > > don't like riding in groups and, no, my stoker isn't up to a full day > > of hills.
> > We're just interested in a Dublin sight-seeing day trip.
> > But, thanks for the pointers.
> > Jones
> Dear Jones!
> Phoenix appears to be ideal for your situation. > However the pedals (essentially a modern version of ‘Rat Traps‘; read: > ouch! on the shins) of that strange looking tandem pictured are > potentially quite painful if a foot slips off the pedal. If your wife > has a bicycle @ home; I would suggest you take her own pedals & > possibly saddle w/ you. If her pedals are clip ins, take cycling shoes > too. If she doesn’t have a bike @ home that she is confortable with, > then ask Phoenix for a pair of rubber pedals. If you are going to wear > helmets, I would definitely take my own for reasons of both fit & > sanitation. > And you, Mr. Jones, might want to do the same.
> Best wishes for your trip.
> P.S. I’m not sure if this idea would help or not; (please note that > the tandem in image 3 of 60 is dirty, perhaps not a good sign) but you > might want to send a good sized tip (the $$$ type) in advance for a > bike that works reasonably well. I.E. lubricated, brake & cables that > stop the bike, true wheels, cones adjusted , derailleur’s that shift > effortlessly & accurately, etc. Also I noticed that the riders in some > of the gallery appear to have the saddle height mis-adjusted. If the > tandems don’t have quick release clamps, make sure that you get the > height & straightness adjusted before leaving the shop.
It does look a bit like some of their customers rend every bike that they rent. -- AJ
!Jones wrote: > On Mon, 9 Nov 2009 09:13:42 -0800 (PST), in rec.bicycles.tech Chalo > <chalo.col...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I was making a play on words, based on your use of the word >> "rend" (break apart) in the thread title. I read the title and >> thought, "hey, I do that".
>> The only bike I ever rented was a BikeE, because it was the only one >> I ever found for rent that could be adjusted to fit my size. It was >> educational, in that it taught me to avoid BikeEs and other similarly >> ill-conceived bikes from that time forward.
>> Chalo
> Oh... that was a "fat finger"... I meant "rent".
> I have heard that a pun (play on words) is the most intelligent form > of humor... in that case, it's utterly lost on me. OTOH, you have Ed > Dolan. What can I say?
> Jones... above a sea slug; however, less than genius.
Another problem with your use of "rent" is that in the US, we say "rented."
Chalo Colina wrote: > [...] > The only bike I ever rented was a BikeE, because it was the only one I > ever found for rent that could be adjusted to fit my size. It was > educational, in that it taught me to avoid BikeEs and other similarly > ill-conceived bikes from that time forward.
You must relax your upper body and only use light forces to steer on a 'bent. I always have new riders hold the bars with only their thumb and forefinger to prevent over-controlling the bike.
On a proper SWB 'bent, you just think where you want the bike to go, and it does it.
-- Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007 I am a vehicular cyclist.
On Mon, 9 Nov 2009 18:15:21 -0600, in rec.bicycles.tech "Pat"
<newint...@home.com> wrote: >Another problem with your use of "rent" is that in the US, we say "rented."
Well... it also lacks a subject.
I once wrote a question for a final exam in some big data processing section. The students were to write code to resolve: "What was the outcome of the candidate's election?" I mistyped it as "erection"... and this was in 1998 as Clinton's impeachment hearings were in full swing.
Never truce a spelling checker, I say... not in the Untied States of America, anyway!!!
> Chalo Colina wrote: > > [...] > > The only bike I ever rented was a BikeE, because it was the only one I > > ever found for rent that could be adjusted to fit my size. It was > > educational, in that it taught me to avoid BikeEs and other similarly > > ill-conceived bikes from that time forward.
> You must relax your upper body and only use light forces to steer on a > 'bent. I always have new riders hold the bars with only their thumb and > forefinger to prevent over-controlling the bike.
> On a proper SWB 'bent, you just think where you want the bike to go, and > it does it.
Thanks, Obi-Wan. I'll have to try harder to stretch out with my feelings.
Chalo Colina wrote: > Tom Sherman wrote: >> Chalo Colina wrote: >>> [...] >>> The only bike I ever rented was a BikeE, because it was the only one I >>> ever found for rent that could be adjusted to fit my size. It was >>> educational, in that it taught me to avoid BikeEs and other similarly >>> ill-conceived bikes from that time forward. >> You must relax your upper body and only use light forces to steer on a >> 'bent. I always have new riders hold the bars with only their thumb and >> forefinger to prevent over-controlling the bike.
>> On a proper SWB 'bent, you just think where you want the bike to go, and >> it does it.
> Thanks, Obi-Wan. I'll have to try harder to stretch out with my > feelings.
> On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:34:41 -0600, in rec.bicycles.tech Tom Sherman > °_° <twshermanREM...@THISsouthslope.net> wrote:
>>On a proper SWB 'bent, you just think where you want the bike to go, and >>it does it.
> I think I wanna go where there's a cold beer... maybe two! ... aye! > ...and the laughter of harlots!
Beer is for barbarians ... and harlots are too for that matter. We superior types prefer wine and women of cultivation who will accompany us to the opera and the ballet. But Jones is not a genius like Ed Dolan the Great. He is infinitely inferior as witness his degraded taste in liquid refreshment and females. Alas, he has no powers of discrimination.
Regards,
Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota aka Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota
>"!Jones" <swsm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message >news:dghhf5tshkaopm2jikp96rc1lkpd4cab28@4ax.com... >> On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:34:41 -0600, in rec.bicycles.tech Tom Sherman >> °_° <twshermanREM...@THISsouthslope.net> wrote:
>>>On a proper SWB 'bent, you just think where you want the bike to go, and >>>it does it.
>> I think I wanna go where there's a cold beer... maybe two! ... aye! >> ...and the laughter of harlots!
>Beer is for barbarians ... and harlots are too for that matter. We superior >types prefer wine and women of cultivation who will accompany us to the >opera and the ballet. But Jones is not a genius like Ed Dolan the Great. He >is infinitely inferior as witness his degraded taste in liquid refreshment >and females. Alas, he has no powers of discrimination.
>Regards,
>Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota >aka >Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota
Aren't we having that very discussion in another thread? Surely, sir, can we not keep this nonsense from spilling all over the group like the fight scene in "Blazing Saddles"?
One other point: Yesterday, in Message-ID: <4_OdnXTQStplMGXXnZ2dnUVZ_sSdn...@prairiewave.com>, addressing Mr. Press, did you not write: < QUOTE >
>Furthermore, this is my thread and everything that transpires on this thread >is my business by virtue of that.
< /QUOTE >
Well, OK; however, you are now posting to my thread. Say whatever you wish, but please don't cross-post it to a dozen other unrelated groups. One reason we don't do that is that it annoys the people on the other groups... neither my posting nor your reply to it had anything to do with cycling. Why annoy the rest of the world by cross-posting it to the Austrailian groups as it they care.
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