Patsy's Long Spin

[Patsymc]

Well that was a little bit special , 8 other riders and myself left Malin head on the Inishowen peninsula on saturday at 2pm for our spin to the Hook . 500k sounded like a long way but I don't think any of us appreciated the sheer distance until we were about 8 or 9 hrs into it. When you ride for 5hrs and are still in Donegal it gets a bit daunting. The plan was to keep a steady 25kph so as not to overstress the body and to go up the hills as slowly as we needed to keep us in good shape. After about 80-90km just after Buncrana I think the village was called Tooban ,we were met by some families and 4 little girls that were being treated for cancer and who had been helped by Aoibheann's pink tie and to be honest we were blown away with their welcome for us , I think only then did we see the difference our ride was making to these people and Aoibheann's pink tie. As we left Tooban we couldn't even talk to each other and there were a good few tears shed. We then headed on past letterkenny and had our first break after about 130km just outside Donegal town.

We took 30 minutes to relax and get some food in and a bit of a rub from out physio Ken if we needed it. Then it was on the bikes and south through Ballyshannon and on to Manor Hamilton where we stopped for 15 minutes to put on our lights , next was Carrick on Shannon which I think we hit somewhere between 12 and 1am , 9 riders wearing pink going through the centre of a town as the pubs,clubs and chippers are flat out gets a bit of attention and I think none of us were too comfortable, and glad to get past it.

Strokestown was the location of our next proper stop and we were met there by a lady who had stayed up till 2am to come out and thank us.The weather had been playing ball up until then but about 15 minutes after we left the rain absolutly poured down and stayed that way for the next 90 minutes, we pulled into Athlone and grabbed a quick bite to eat and a change into dry clothes, the rain had eased a bit by then and we set off heading for another 4hr spin to Kilkenny . It was around 7am when I sort of hit a wall , the legs were fine but I started to get very sleepy and almost felt a bit drunk , I dropped back to Tom and Shane in the support van and grabbed a can of coke and it actually work surprisingly well , within 10 minutes I was grand . Somewhere between 9 and 10am it finally stopped raining just before we got to Kilkenny. Here we went to the Sprinhill court hotel where they treated us to a breakfast and a quick shower in the leisure centre.

We left Kilkenny about 10:30 and had a few other riders for company and were joined by another 30 or so in Thomastown, we took a few pictures in Inistigue and headed to New Ross for about 12noon where we got a brilliant welcome there must have been 200-300 people there along with another 40 or 50 riders to finish the ride with us. The last part was just a formality at this stage and we tipped on to Hook Head where we got another brilliant welcome from friends and families and a lot of people from the Aoibheanns pink tie charity turned up to give us a cheer . A day I'll ever forget.
There is a lot of stuff up on the 500k in a day facebook page also on the Aoibheanns pink tie facebook page, some of it makes for hard reading especially the stuff about the km's that were dedicated to children who are fighting cancer or who have lost their battle but definitely worth reading , if for no other reason than we can get an idea of what they go through.

In numbers we travelled from Malin head to Hook head in 24hrs which is 520km , we were turning the pedals for 19hrs 30 min , had an average speed of 27kph and burned 12000 calories .

[pjd]

Hats off to you Patsy.
awesome stuff , well done.

[frankb]

Sounds v v tough - ye were so unlucky with the weather conditions. Cyling thro a drunken town in the rain and the dark - nice! Emotional but sounds you got alot out of it as well as lots of others - congrats on a great achievement and the effort for a great charity

[DavidF]

Awesome! Some achievement and for a great cause too.

Well done to all of ye?

PS when did Mick Finn take up road biking? I thought he was a downhiller

[LorraineB]

Well done patsy, brilliant achievement and for such a great cause.

[DavidT]

Well done Patsy!
You won't forget that for a while

[BrianM]

Well done Patsy, great report, some cycling in that trip, fair play to all involved

[pcoulahan]

Well done Patsy. A very tough challenge.

[Patsymc]

Thanks everyone , it was a very rewarding experience and hopefully next year we'll add another 100km to the distance and another few grand to our total collected.

[Patsymc]

Oh yeah David , Mick Finn is riding road bikes for the past 2 yrs and he's fairly feckin strong especially on a flat road.