May the road rise to meet you. A 2,400km route along Ireland’s west coast is the perfect backdrop to some two-wheeled sword and sorcery. Cyclist talks to four riders about their experiences on the TransAtlantic Way.
Words: Ewan Wilson Photography: Fergus Coyle
There is a phrase in the Irish language, In Éirinn tá Neart– ‘In Ireland there is strength’, and it’s hard to think of a more apt description of the TransAtlantic Way. To tame every corner, every climb, every cliff-clinging road of this event takes the deepest resolve and resourcefulness.
Over the course of this week-long, self-supported expedition, riders will not only be required to climb the equivalent of Everest three times over, they’ll find themselves sleeping under Gaelic football stands, foraging for food and sheltering in hedges, all in the name of conquering Ireland’s wildest roads.
Setting out from Derry under the shadow of the Peace Bridge, riders pedal from the tip of Donegal, past the Gaeltacht, through Connemara and around the Ring of Kerry before a final push along the south coast that will (hopefully) see them finish in Kinsale. As ultracycling goes, you’d be hard pushed to find a tougher event anywhere on the British Isles.
The TransAtlantic Way offers up two routes. The longer, named after Gaelic folk hero Cú Chulainn, is a 2,400km odyssey that clocks up nearly 30,000m climbing. The shorter – and these things are relative – Sédanta route (Cú Chulainn’s childhood name) comprises 1,600km with 19,000m of climbing.
There are few rules on the TransAtlantic Way, which prides itself in being an ‘experience’ rather than a ‘race’, however riders must complete the course from start to finish without detours and must be fully self-supported, receiving no private outside assistance. All the organisers arm them with is a GPS tracker and wishes of good luck.
In the spirit of the old Irish blessing, ‘May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back,’ Cyclist hears from four participants of this unique cycling event.
Donnacha Cassidy – 34, from Ireland, 1st in Cú Chulainn
‘I’m from Ireland so you’d think I would have seen these places before, but it’s the complete opposite. I hadn’t seen the vast majority of the route before riding the TransAtlantic Way – I knew about 20% of it. You end up going to places that you would never even think of driving to.
‘I really liked riding at night – you could see the moon out on the sea. But as beautiful as that was, the area is quite heavily populated with sheep, so you need to watch out for them sleeping in the middle of the road. I don’t like riding right through the night though. You get into a state of almost drunkenness, and you can’t move. No amount of Red Bull can keep you going.’
‘I found myself constantly planning ahead – where to find lunch or where to sleep – so I didn’t even listen to music until the fourth or fifth day. There was plenty to keep my mind occupied.’
‘This was my third time doing the event. Over the years I’ve learned a lot about how to prepare, where the shops are and what to steer clear of. This time I wanted to avoid trawling through endless booking websites for accommodation, so I decided to camp. If you’re camping there’s more incentive to get up and go, something I’ve learned before, the hard way.’
‘On my second time doing the race, I was leaving my hotel room at 5am and I fell down the stairs – my legs were like jelly and I was half asleep. This time I finished nearly a day faster by camping and not wasting time in hotels. There aren’t many wooded areas on the west coast of Ireland though, so you’re limited to camping in fields or in a ditch somewhere.’
‘I’m a delivery driver, so I often find myself driving a lot of these roads. I pass one spot pretty much every day and think, “Oh, I slept there during the TransAtlantic Way.”’
Chris Case – 45, from USA, 11th in Sédanta
‘I went into this wanting to race, but also knowing that that this was my first true bikepacking event. I had three objectives: the first was to ride the longest ride of my life, the second was to ride from sunrise to sunrise, and the third was to finish in under eight days.‘One of the great things about bikepacking is that everybody goes into it with a game plan, but nobody’s able to stick to that game plan 100% of the time, so it’s about developing skills in problem-solving and resilience. That’s the fun of it, whether you’re racing or not.’
‘I knew Ireland’s a beautiful place, but there were certain scenes – like this cliffside road on the Dingle Peninsula – where I’d come around a corner and my expectations would be completely blown away. At times like that I’d pull over and just take it all in, forgetting about racing. I needed that too – I didn’t go there just to put my head down and stare four feet in front of my wheel to finish as quickly as possible. I went there for an experience.’
‘Sometimes you ride late into the night and you find this incredible landscape and say to yourself, “This is where I’m sleeping tonight.” I feel I’m pretty lucky to be able to do that – park up, watch the sunset, eat yet another energy bar for dinner, fall asleep, then wake up and do it all again. I’m not trying to brag, but I actually can’t believe I did it, especially as in many ways I think it was kind of a dumb thing to even attempt.’
‘One guy I met was an engineer, I think. He suffered a stroke a few years ago and here he was doing this ride. He slept on the ground every night – sometimes on concrete slabs underneath football stands to stay out of the weather. I’m not sure he showered for seven straight days. Compared to him I was a complete wimp.’
Nadine Ansorg – 39, from Germany, 9th in Sédanta
‘I follow a lot of ultracycling accounts on social media and my coach did the TransAtlantic Way a year before me and posted a lot about it. Even though the weather was miserable it looked incredible, and naturally I became really intrigued.‘I now live in the UK so Ireland is very close, and I had been to Dublin before and loved it. Obviously, you don’t get the whole story of a country from its capital, so I wanted to get out into the countryside and meet more Irish people.’
‘I really enjoyed getting to know Ireland – it’s such an incredibly beautiful country. At times I was cycling along and I just thought to myself, “Oh my God, I’m so lucky to be here.”I really loved Achill Island and the Gap of Dunloe. These places are not as touristy as they could be, although when I arrived at the Gap of Dunloe there were busloads of Americans who were telling stories about their Irish heritage.
‘The people really made it for me though – everyone was so welcoming and friendly. Often I would cycle through a village and there were people standing on the roadside, ready to start a conversation as I cycled past. Sadly, I couldn’t stop for everyone, but it was really sweet.’
‘There were so many little moments where I was able to connect with people and nature. I remember one at a checkpoint. It was at this typical Irish farm owned by the organiser’s cousin, and the farmers there took me out to see their new-born horse. That was special.’
‘There’s no better tourist marketing campaign than an ultracycling race. You get a bunch of crazy cyclists coming to Ireland to experience the country and they then share the experience on social media. Afterwards, a lot of people said they loved my pictures and told me they might visit Ireland as well.’
Kirsten Cluley – 34, from Scotland, 9th in Cú Chulainn
‘My dad and I were planning to cycle the TransAtlantic Way before Covid but never got around to it. A couple of years later, I decided to revisit the idea, but this time without my dad.’
‘Before the race my friends put a playlist together and added thousands of songs to it. When I was on the bike, to pass the time sometimes I would listen and try to guess what song would be next. I’d then try and figure out who added that song to the playlist. It also let me know who had good taste and who didn’t.
‘I heard from a friend who’d done the race before that Gaelic football pitches were a good shout for getting a night’s sleep, so one night I stopped at a club that, just by chance, hadn’t been locked up. I was able to go in, have a shower and use the loos. But I still slept outside because I was paranoid someone was going to come and lock me in.’
‘Another night I slept on the side of a road underneath a road sign. At around 3am these cars went past and started a rave in a car park down the road. They were blasting out music for the rest of the night – it was so strange, and I didn’t sleep well that night to say the least.’
‘On another day I slept so badly that when I tried to get moving on the bike it felt like I had totally bonked. But then Fran, a girl I’d met at the start of the event, happened to come pedalling up behind me and it was just what I needed. She was so chatty and positive, telling me, “Right, come on, let’s go.” ‘For the rest of the race I felt like she was my new best friend, though in a competitive way because we really did race each other all the way to Kinsale. It was her first ever ultra and she finished two hours ahead of me in the end – she rode amazingly.
