1.Why Bikepacking Belongs On Your List

Let's talk about my adventure on the Wiclow way! Roadman, Q dot intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness, and our longevity? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh, and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Roadman, welcome back to another Roadman Cycling Podcast. Today I'm ready to unpack my Wicklow Way adventure. It was one of the things when this summer started out that I really wanted to get done. I wanted to plan these little mini adventures and scatter them through the summer. I've had a couple of big one day ones that I've really enjoyed, but this is my first overnight trip on the gravel bike and it's definitely not going to be my last and if you're only going to listen to the first 30 seconds of this podcast that's my takeaway go do these overnight adventures because there's some things on the bike that are just there they're just the enriched your life they're so amazing and one of them I would say is traveling with your bike and get into foreign countries and explore new places on your bike I absolutely love it now I encourage everyone to do it and bike packing I'd have to stick up there on the list. It's just so freeing to know that you have every single thing you need to live and survive attached to your bike that you can stop anywhere for the night, pull out a cooker, fire up a campfire and you are ready to go. It's such a beautiful feeling and honestly for those two days across the Wicklow Way we were absolutely blessed with amazing weather. So for anyone that didn't hear my episode of preparing for the wick-a-way, what it was, it's ultimately a hiking trail and what we decided to do was to try and bike pack it with our gravel bikes loaded with case and you can go back to the last episode where I go through exactly what I packed from tent to cooker to head torches to walk here I brought with me. So it's around 122 kilometers and 2200 meters of climb and over the two days and it doesn't sound a lot but when you add in that this is a hiking trail, I can't emphasize is that enough? There's large, large sections of Heikebike in this. We started out in Marley Park and we ended all the way down in Carlo in Plonigal and it's a understated, inauspicious ends to the Wicklow way. You get there and it's just kind of, hmm, this is it? There's nothing else? There's no champagne? There's no ceremony? There's not even, I don't even get anything to mark that you've finished only your foil and your kamoo. Just stop selling anywhere to go next. If you're heading to do the Wicklow Way, the start is in Merley Park, and it can be a little bit tricky to find the start, certainly kind of the GPX files, but it's literally just in the gate in Merley Park. We went in the gate, ended up circling the whole park before we found the start in Merley Park. And there is a little bit of a ceremonial start, which is cool. So I wanna jump in and tell you all about this before I do, and before I forget, I just wanna remind you about Patreon. Patreon's how we keep the podcast a lot of folks. Patreon, we have a model on this podcast and it's unlike other podcasts when you listen to the Armstrong and Moo of podcast, there's 20 minutes of ads at the start. We don't do the 20 minutes of ads at the start. We have what I call a model of soundness. If you're enjoying the podcast and you can afford a price of a beer once a month, I ask you to donate that over on patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch. The link to that is in the bio. And that allows me to keep the podcast free for everyone. that allows the podcast to stay ad-free for the moment. Maybe we'll take on a cool sponsor, but we don't have to take on some shitty sponsor or a nutrition product that I don't believe in. When we take on a sponsor, it's gonna be something I use and I love and I'm able to do that. And I'm able to be selective because of user generosity.

2.Loaded Bikes And Leg-Sapping Climbs

So please head on over to Patreon and hook us up with a point of beard if you're enjoying it. The first thing you'll notice when you start bike packing is, and I noticed it literally lifting the bike down the stairs my apartments, my apartments upstairs, there's no elevator, it's one floor upstairs. The bike weighs an absolute ton when you have all the kit strapped to it because you have the big handlebar bag with your sleep system on it. You have the big tail bag behind the saddle which is basically your workhorse bag which is holding the cooker, your spare clothes, your spare kit and then you have the dead weight bag underneath your top tube which is holding the heavy stuff like food, tools, spares. So when you go add all this together, I didn't wait a bike but it's north of 20 kilograms, it is heavy and cumbersome and difficult to lift and then you throw on your bottles of course and I just add more to it. So riding through the city went across and I met my training partner who I rode the Wiggler Way with, Matt and met him, we had breakfast over on the south side near the start and we didn't really know what was in store for us, we were a boat a little naive going into it. I feel like we bow packed pretty well and and we didn't bring anything that we didn't use and we didn't want for anything, you know, that we didn't bring. So that was nice and that was comforting to know. That was just off the back of, you know, learning from people who have gone before. Lauren Stendam, if you had on the podcast, he's a YouTube video about it and chatting to him on what he brought and that worked super well for us. So it starts off, you get through Marley Park and there's a little bit of a road section and up to Taylor's Pub and there's, you know, some big road inclines, you know, north of 10, 12% inclines there. And you just zip up them on the road, boy, with a little bit of a, you know, pant. But when you're on the gravel bike, laden with kiss and food in your pockets, it is a heavy push on these. Any time the road kicks above 6%, 7% with that much weight on the bike, on the bike, it's difficult and it's challenging. And you end up dealing with the little, you know what a wee little postman, zig, zig, zag, or you're going from left to right on the road. The trail starts out beautifully picturesque and you hit this beautiful bit of single track and it's really nice and I was enjoying that flowy little section until I got my force puncture today and talk about being ill-prepared. I think we had I don't know five tubes between us but all of my hand up I never checked the depth of my wheels literally got tubes the day before in a rush sorry the morning of in a rush I pulled them into my bag, never checked the length of the valves. So ended up after, I would say, 15, 20 kilometers of the week away, one hour in to a 16-hour odyssey. Fixing punctures all school with a puncture repair kit because the only tube I had with a long enough valve to get through the long carbon rim on my Reynolds wheels was the one I in fact punctured. So that was a little bit of a downer. But it gave some time to reapply Sun Cream and Bug Spray and all that sort of good stuff. The first real challenge of this, and the main challenge is the first real time you're going to take to yourself what the fuck I got myself into is Jokes and it's a long climb. It's a long off-road technical climb and if you have good scales and you're moving well you can just about ride this. I was on the limit, I didn't have a parameter on my gravel bike but I would have had long sections over 400 watts just keeping the boy going forward and you're gonna need good technical skills as well you're moving around there's not a clean line. You're over rocks you're over loose dirt you're picking your way up little ridges and true gaps and then when you get to the top it's not quite finished either because it stays on a plateau and the plateau is these narrow in our land we call them sleepers I'm not sure internationally what they're call, they're basically a two by four wooden beam and you're trying to balance along the top of this to ride along.

3.Boardwalks, Streams And Hike-A-Bike

And on a mountain bike, on a gravel bike, on a normal day, balancing on this, it's a little bit challenging, but it's not overly challenging. But when you have all the equipment on the bike, that throws off the center of gravity a little bit. So it requires a little bit more focus. I was able to ride across them without any mishaps, thankfully. If you couldn't ride them, you ended up just walking for a kilometer after kilometer. There must have been eight, nine kilometers of this stuff. So, you know, that's a skill you definitely need because if you slide off the edge of the board, you are going to get a nasty enough spill because they're elevated boards. Another thing to bear in mind if you're dealing with this Wicklow wire, a similar adventure, is where are you getting water? Streams are a good source of water, but you need to know, you know, streams that aren't moving versus streams and moving. I didn't know that before going out but you drink the water, it is moving rather than distagning and pooling water, popping these little chlorine tablets and the water is good to drink. That got me out of a hole and then higher up the top of the mountain we were able to find water that was free-flowing and it hadn't run through anything, just filtered through some nice limestone rock and it was super clear. Mass did get a stomach bug that night but not sure if that was related to the water if that was related to something that aids or just an eight-hour day of exertion with, you know, so on on top of that dehydration, on top of that poor nutrition because you're eating off your bike all day on top of that. The first real time that I was like, oh, what have we got ourselves into here was the first long section of hike a bike. And we've seen a couple of hikers and they had poles and they were like, well kitted up for the day of hike and then here I come, bike on my back, trying to carry it down this completely unroyable, you know, Machu Vanderpaul on a good day before he smashed himself in the mountain bike race, wouldn't have rolled down this. It was an impossibility to ride down it. So, bike on the back and you're trying to scurry and kind of just make your way almost, you know, it's just such poor foot and all the way down and it's, you're scarpering down this thing and it's difficult walking and it's difficult with the bike on your back when you're dehydrated and the bike is heavy and the pedals are banging into your back. You need good patience and you need perspective as to why you're out there because those bits aren't that enjoyable. End of a long forest day I think we put down eight and a half hours. We set up camp and that's probably the most fun part of the day, find them somewhere to camp, setting up the camp, Sparking up the camp stove, cooking, making yourself a noise, cup of hot chocolate. And I had this taste of like absolute horseshit, like a boil and a bag curry. Do not get that ever. It was like a camp and specific meal. So you heat up the water, you add it into the bag, leave it for 10 minutes, come back to it and it's apparently a chicken curry. It tastes like shit wrapped in other shit. It was shocking. And I actually didn't feel brilliant going to bed that noise from that chicken curry. slept, amazing pro tip from LTD, was earplugs, bring the earplugs, stick them in, they worked really well, earplugs had myself an inflatable little mattress that went underneath because you want to get yourself up off the ground with a really light sleeping bag and the tent from Big Agnes which was a super light tent. Total to set up the entire camp probably took us under 30 minutes, we were doing it just as the sun was setting and by the time you cook down and you chill out, have a bit of a chat decompressed for the day, it's basically bedtime. Now the next morning we wanted to get moving so we broke up the camp, repacked it into the bike and it's like going on holidays. You know when you go out on holidays you bring a lot of stuff and then you try to bring it home and it's like how did this stuff fit into that suitcase?

4.Glendalough And Sean Kelly's Climb

It's kind of that feeling because there's all the stuff just doesn't pack as neat when your coming home and oh yeah I struggle to get the stuff in I ended up packing at Arseways and you know it unbalanced me even further. We did we elected to go for breakfast in a local pub that we found and it wasn't bad Wicklow, Heder and Lara it wasn't great either to be honest they were serving some brown sauce with questionable exploratory dates by questionable I mean like eight months out of date. The start of day two from Glendallock and if you wanted to this as a standalone and you're in Ireland or you're coming to Ireland, this would be a brilliant place to go. Start in Lara, ride on the road to Glen de Loc and then from Glen de Loc you ride, it's just spectacular. I'm bringing a vlog out next week and I need to start editing it. But I say in the vlog, like, ride in true Glen de Loc, it's like ride in true Jurassic Park, it's like the land of time for God, it's unbelievable, it's like a scene from Lord of the Rings, it's phenomenal. Picture-esque doesn't even do justice to this and me rambling on an audio podcast, definitely those neither. You'll see the footage from Glendallock and it's just breathtaking. The next climb you take on is Glen Mallor and this is a famous one for anyone in Ireland because it has a statue of the late great Che Elliott, first Irish world champion at the top of that climb and Che unfortunately lost his life in an accident, cleaning the shotgun many years ago. But he inspired the generation Steven Roach, Sean Kelly and it laid the foundation for what every art cyclist is today. So he was a real trailblazer and his name is on iconic Irish race, the Cheyelian Memorial, which is held annually. So it was great to road up that climb off road. I've never ridden that off road before. The next section down off the Glemmallor is another Huyckeboyk section and it's you know the second half of this route is beautiful but that hoikeboy is pretty nearly probably gonna take you a half an hour to 40 minutes hoikeboy again totally impossible to ride. It's boik on your back stove for the entire time and it's really careful on your foot because if you get a fall off these high rocks you're gonna tumble quite a bit down. The next climb straight after that it's sleeved bloom and then after that it gets flatter and we get through this sort of rolling countryside and you're kind of riding in with animals and you're right up close with horses and cattle and it's really beautiful spectacular. Some narrow little lane ways where the bushes and the kind of broilers are almost overgrown and you're picking your way through it but it's all roidable from there on end. That's the only hawicobike for that day. Now there's some seriously steep pitches and you're going to be roid and full gas to get up some of these pitches especially with the kit but it's phenomenal. I couldn't recommend that highly enough. we were blessed that we had absolutely perfect weather. It started to finish a little bit nippy that night but really like we couldn't have wished for any better. I didn't put on an arm arm arm or I didn't put on a leg warmer and I rolled with a jersey and no base layer for the two days. It was just perfect, very un-orish like weather. This is a dangerous trip potentially. You are a long way from civilization on 90% of this trip. If you crash and have a bad crash and there's places This is you can fall off the edge of a cliff and fall 700-800 meters down below very easily, like one foot runoff to your left. If you try to go around on rock and you get it wrong, you're off balancing, you go down, you're gone. You're going to be waiting for a helicopter to get out of there from Mount and rescue. Also, there's no food on the trail. You need to be completely self-sufficient. There's no water on the trail. So again, self-sufficient. It's not something you should take on as a beginner. If you're an intermediate to advanced rider, I would say it's a phenomenal, amazing adventure, but you'd want to be going with training partners who are similar ability to you.

5.Weather Warnings And Final Reflections

You don't want to be carrying somebody who's negative attitude, poor fitness, or underlying injuries or health concerns because it's definitely not for the faint heart. That's with the good weather. The weather turns fast up there and I train on these roads all the time on the road. I know that when the weather turns up there it turns bad fast and you can find yourself in a real sticky spot on the road, multiplied up by fucking 26,000 when you're off road. If the weather turns it's going to get nerly, all those roots on the descents are going to get slippy, the rocks are getting slippy, the boards are going to be difficult to ride with the winds, it could turn very bad, very fast up there. So if you're air down adjust a cautionary note to check the weather forecast, finished in clonigal got picked up, Sarah and Mrs came down to pick me up and honestly I was just delighted to get into the car, to get it feel a little bit of warmth and I love that contrast. I love the idea and life of doing hard things but then having that jokes the position of the contrast, you know, sitting back that night on the couch and watching a movie never felt so good. If I had a side around all weekend on the couch watching movies I would have felt like a slob but because I was out there in the elements battling hertings, overcome and resistance, then coming back and chilling out with a nice dinner, watching a movie on the couch, it was a perfect weekend. I was absolutely busted the day after, do not plan anything the day after. I split this over two days, you could do the same route over three days and it would be very, very enjoyable. It's guided as a or it's indicated as a seven-day hike for reference if you're looking to do it as a hike. Hike will be brilliant on it, boi epic crack do it over two days of your advanced do it over three days if you're a beginner bring friends with you i would say a group of two to four is perfect you don't want to go any more than four because it just starts getting to mess you with people crashing have a mechanicals unbelievable experience absolutely loved every minute of it and i definitely have another few little mini adventures like this up my sleeve which i'm going to hopefully pull off before the end of the summer. Roadman, this was a slightly longer form Roadman Bites podcast, but I just want to get it out because the Wycliffe Way was so epic and I hope you go and do it yourself. Jump on over to Instagram, it's roadman.soitlin or on Twitter it's just roadman.soitlin. Hit me up with a mention and let me know if you're planning this adventure or something similar because I'm gonna have loads more coming up and stay tuned for tomorrow's podcast because I'm chatting with one of the key people in commutes tomorrow and I think you're really gonna enjoy it. Roadman, ride safe, especially if you're taking on a big adventure. Chatty tomorrow. Hey everybody, it's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the Roadman community. It's a challenge. It's a challenge called a 14-day Kickstarter challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making you faster and making you leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guesswork out of everything. It's 14 days of training plans regardless of what your level is. There's Masters, Beginner, Advanced. There's meal plans, shopping list and even a video course holding your hand and talking you true at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmansoycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio. That's roadmansoycling.com slash 14 day.