Tips for wet gear!

This is only if you are caught out, get a good old soaking and are without your home comforts to affect a change of gear. First you gotta get rid of the grime! Into the bath with your gear on or off you! Your own choice. Choice is yours. Wrap wet gear in hotel towels and give em  a good wring out! Leave to dry overnight suspended somewhere! Hotel coat hangers are useless for this process. Shoes can be stuffed with newspaper . Although hotels usually don’t have any papers after brekkie! People filch them! An alternative is a hand towel stuffed into the shoe. After of course removing the insole. Insoles dry of their own accord.
Next morning the strategic use of a hair dryer or a smoothing iron will suffice to complete the job. Word of caution! Hotel irons are not as good as the wife’s one! ( I’ll be killed for that!) so you could burn your delicates! So beware! After that hang the offending article off the back of the bike and pedal like hell!
Job done!
Killarney hotels are full of old age pensioners on holiday trips on buses! Clogging up the morning dining room. Booking tables leaving little room for the rest of us ! Go figure!!
But I got my brekkie ok and prepared to head off.
The morning is quite nice. Even though it’s cloudy, rain is not forecast.
Rolling out of Killarney makes me happy. It’s not a town for me. All Irish music and paddy Wackery. Don’t get me wrong! I like Foster and Allen but over breakfast? No!
Bit of a climb out but stretches the legs which are tired after yesterday. Rolling now nearing Tralee. A great bike path around Tralee impressed me. But when it ended I was spat out into heavy traffic with no shoulder for miles. Stressful!
Listowel for ‘the healin’ and coffee was next. Great to be in the land of the mighty John B!
Checking ferry times I do what I vowed I wouldn’t. Put the hammer down to make the ferry time. This was supposed to be a relaxed trip! Luckily a lot of downhill ensued meaning I made the ferry with 20 mins to spare.
There I met Andy. Andy is doing the Wild Atlantic Way for the next 9 days. Has all his gear and a tent. Awesome! This is his first solo trip with touring bike and panniers.

Andy is doing the Wild Atlantic Way. Met him on the Tarbert Ferry

We are heading in opposite directions. He to Kilkee and me to Ennis.
Lissycasey eventually appears after a horrendous struggle with close passing traffic on the main road to Ennis. Very stressful.
I’m thinking ! Someday there will have to be nationwide compulsory psychology study done about what happens to us when we get into a motorized vehicle. We scare the living life out of everyone. Especially noticed by cyclists. For the sake of saving a millisecond on a journey I will scare the wits out of a poor sod on a bike! Rant over! 😜
Ennis is a welcome sight after 122km.
Now for a place to stay and sort myself for tomorrow.

Me and John B Keane in Listowel

Lisseycasey with a Magnu