This trip had a humble beginning, it originally was a trip to the States to travel Route 66, however as life sometimes does it threw a curve ball and the plan went out the window. Undeterred from “living the dream” a little inspiration arrived and I came up with the idea of travelling the coastal roads of Ireland, combining my love of my motorcycle with a “holiday”. As the plans began to come together my friend Robert decided to come on board and do the trip with me. The decision to do the trip for charity was an easy choice to make and choosing the Irish Cancer Society and Ulster Cancer Foundation was also easy. A combination of personal experiences and the hardships that people go through with this illness made it a likely choice.
The planning worked in many different stages many of which were very time consuming. The first step was to come up with the actual route, this involved going through the map of Ireland and marking each of the 480 towns that we were to travel through. It had been decided from any early stage that we would camp all the way round, so that led nicely on to the next stage of the plan and that was to contact as many campsites that matched our route. We had such a great response from places all over the country and we pretty much had somewhere to stay for the entire journey. With the plans now a reality and not just a pipe dream we set about creating a website www.coastalforcaner.org and a bebo site, these were instrumental for the next stage of planning. The third part was to contact all the bike clubs and put the invite out to the entire biking community to come travel some of the distance with us. In this modern age we live in the internet is great!!! From here things started to speed up a little, we set up a link on the website allowing people to donate on line also we got our sponsorship cards and started to send them out and so the fund raising began. We set ourselves targets of E10,000 and £2,000 for the Irish Cancer Society and Ulster Cancer Foundation respectively; currently our targets are within reach and there’s still time for people to donate.
With the departure date approaching everything began to come together. Many clubs had donated club patches to go on our “Coastal for Cancer Patches of Support” flag. Our donations were increasing. We received sponsorship from Bike Tech by way of bike parts and service for three bikes-the third belonged to my brother Mark. Clubs had started to fill in our charity log on our website which details how much the biking community has raised for charities- we hope to compile a report and send it out to the media to show the more positive side of the biking community. We are still urging any clubs who haven’t filled out this log to please do so.
On 14th June at 10.30am “Coastal for Cancer, Charity Motorcycle Run” began. We left Salthill Carpark, Galway, followed by 20 bikes heading along the coast to Murrisk, Co. Mayo, our first stop. On our website we give a detailed blog of each day of our trip and the adventures we encountered. Also log on to see the pictures we took and video footage from our on board camera. To say that doing this trip was a dream is an understatement. I could never have imagined how phenomenal the rugged coastline of our country is. Everyday we saw sights that blew us away as well as the generosity of people we met along the way. We set schedules for everyday, usually we set off at 10.30am each morning and travelled on average 200kms per day. Some of the road conditions we endured were very trying to say the least and all respect goes to our bikes-Bandit 1200, Tenere 650, Pan European, especially considering the weight of luggage each one was carrying. We were joined at various stages by not only our own club members but by other clubs; No Rules MCC, Islanders MCC, Dogleap MCC, Rally Rats RC, Black Rose RC and individual riders, thanks goes out to those who joined us.
Some of the highlights include the ride up to the mast in Achill, a mile high “vertical” climb into the clouds, on such a steep slope it feels like you are driving and controlling your bike on a knife edge. The ride from Sliabh League to Carrig Ard was one of the wettest days we encountered, we got on the road and followed our directions, this was the first time we hit seriously bad roads, mostly gravel and rock similar to the goat road, south west cork. Even with our best waterproof gear we got soaked and our visibility was very limited in the mountain fog. Once you cross the boarder road conditions are far superior, this is why we loved travelling through Co. Antrim especially with its long sweeping bends it is every bikers dream ride. “The Rope Bridge”, Bushmills, Co. Antrim. Crossing that bridge was exhilarating even though we were pretty freaked out by it. “The Mill”, Downpatrick, Co. Down is a place we feel is worth mentioning, built in 1792 it was restored into an 8 storey hotel in 1987. We stayed there the day when we had the worst weather, it was so bad we cut our miles for that day. We camped in Roundwood, Co. Wicklow, this place is great and the highest village in Ireland. The lighthouse on the cliff edge in Mizan Head is quite breathtaking and the sound of the waves really brings home the power of the sea. The ring of Kerry is eerie at points depending on your fear of heights. It’s a great spin on the bike and a good chance to get the tire well rounded!! especially from Dingle to Dunquin and back again to Miltown heading over the Connor Pass.
The best county for rugged scenery is Co. Donegal, the best roads goes to Co. Antrim, the best cliff edge driving is Co. Kerry, but every county brings its own experiences and adventures in all different ways.
This trip was the experience of a lifetime for us. Thanks to everyone involved and the support we have been given. Please log on and explore our website, fill in our charity log and if you have the time sign our guest book-and let us live out the dream a little longer.
Simon Ollerenshaw
R.S.C
Coastal For Cancer
