2006 Mountain Bike Marathon Course

Now that I have my MacBook Pro back (keyboard died – warranty replacement) it's back to adding another route that I like. The one I'm adding is one that I've not done many times. It's basically the National Mountain Bike Marathon course from 2006. I might actually head up there soon again as it's a great spin (raced in 4ish hours in very wet conditions – steady/fun paced, probably 6) and Carlingford is a great place for some food afterwards. At just over an hour from Dublin, it's not too far either. The course is about 53km long with around 1,800 meters of climbing.

The profile of the course


View Larger Map

Wicklow Road Ride Route - Three Major Climbs

I'm going to post an off road loop the next time but first, here is another road loop that I like to do from time to time. It's pretty long at about 120km with 1900m of climb but if it is not too windy, it's great. I think I have done this exact loop 4 or 5 times. Basically, there are 3 major climbs. Sally Gap from the north, then the Wicklow Gap from the East followed by the Sally Gap from the west. Each of these are about 20 minute climbs for me (at a pretty quick pace). The scenery is amazing along the way and you are never too far away from a shop (it is a long spin after-all).

The Profile for the Spin

I think it was the nicest January day I have seen in Ireland

View Larger Map

The reason I add it now is that it's the spin I did on Sunday, the last day of a big week for me (rest week this week – yeah). It took 4:20 to do it at a pretty quick pace and the PowerTap tells me I used 3,700kJ (so about 3,700kC when you take my efficiency into account). Power averaged 231, 270 normailzed and I got 256 TSS

Road Ride Route - Flat With One Climb

I thought that I should start putting up the routes of some of the nice road and off-road spins that I go on. I'll try to keep them reasonably different and only ones that I actually like. The kml file should be available so it should be easy enough to have a better look at or put onto a Garmin.

The first one is a road ride that I did a couple of days ago. It's mostly rolling terrain for the first 50km or so followed by the only major climb – The Wicklow Gap. Coming from the west it's actually a very easy climb. It's never very steep and your at the top before you know it. A quick descent to Laragh and it's back to mostly flat/rolling terrain back to the city. The roads are pretty good throughout and apart from when your on the N81 and around the city there is not much traffic. I did the spin in a little over 4 hours at a pretty steady pace. Total distance is 120km with a total climb of 1100 meters.


View Larger Map

For some reason I can't get all the points to show in the initial map (maybe too many?). When you look at the map, click next to see the next page of points.