And that would be the 110 kilometer Tour de Kilkenny.
It should prove... interesting. I haven't ridden a road bike since my utterly awesome black Raleigh racer which I last took for a spin in the late autumn of 1991. (After that I got my first provisional driving license and it was a case of 2 wheels good, 4 wheels faster).
In preparation for Gaelforce West I bought a second hand bike (sight unseen, on ebay), and I figured if I have the bike, I might as well put it to some use. Hence the 110 kms ride around some of the more scenic roads of southern Kilkenny.
The only slight snags to this otherwise brilliant plan are:
1: My bike is in a box in the back shed behind my sister's house in County Down where, yes indeed, the Mourne Mountains do sweep down to the sea.
I, as some of you may have gathered from this blog's faint scent of vinegared rice and sun-dried salmon, am not in County Down. This means that the earliest I will get to ride my bike for the first time is some 4 days before the Tour de Kilkenny (though that could well be 3 days before as I'm not too sure if there are any pedals on the bike. Must ask my sister to check).
2: I won't be fit enough to get beyond the Kilkenny ring road. I did go for a long ride on my mountain bike last weekend around Muroran and my God people, my arse. My sorry, sore, hairy arse. I am a jogger, not a cyclist. It felt like I had been terrorized by half of San Francisco. If this is what if feels like to be gay well, lads, you're welcome to it. No objections mind, just I won't be joining ye at the YMCA. No matter how much free beer you offer me (cf. my wide-eyed experiences in various bars along Oxford Street, Sydney, circa 1996).
Anyway, unfit, probably pedal-less but secure in my hetrosexuality, I hereby issue an invitation, nay challenge to you to join me in a spin around the black and amber roads. Further details are available at the following link:
http://www.marblecitycyclers.com/tour-de-kilkenny/
