Tour of Ireland

Johnny Ergo

I'm going to be in and around Cork/Kerry for second stage of Tour of Ireland. Does anyone know of any good spots (mountain passes?) to get a good view? Will they be taking in a part of Macgillycuddy?
Cheers

blorg

You can find stage details here.

LangerDan

Johnny

I reckon the best spot for the second stage will be the top of the Healy Pass. You'll be able to see the riders snake up the hairpins for the last couple of miles before the summit. The only problem is that the only road to / from the top is the race route so you may have to get there early if you are going to drive up. The race is probably only using rolling road closures but normally when the Pass is used for racing or car rallies, they shut it down completely. If you are a bike, there should be no problem.
If you can't get to the top, the hairpins on the ascent near the top are good too and should let you get near the action.

The earlier cat 3 climb outside ballydehob is quite steep near the top and should slow things down a little. It also has the advantage of a couple of small side roads, particularly from Durrus.

The last big climb will be Molls Gap but its long, rather than steep and probably not that interesting.

If you can get to Cork on Wednesday, the finish should be good. It seems that rather than feed the race in the side of Patricks Hill (as with the old Nissan Classic) they will route the riders from the foot nof the hill.

moray_gub

LangerDan wrote:

Johnny

I reckon the best spot for the second stage will be the top of the Healy Pass.

Healy Pass ? Is that the climb on the Glengarriff /Bantry road that has a tunnel at the top and a superb decsent on the other side that goes on for miles ? Last year when we did Mizen Head to Malin Head i remember a climb on that road to Killarney that went on for a while with a few hairpins and wee ran out of water at the at the start of the climb which was no fun as it was approaching 80 that day.

cheers
MG

LangerDan

No, MG - the Healy Pass is the next one West. The road you were on is called the Caha Pass (I think) or the Tunnel Road. To get to the Healy pass, you continue through Glengarriff towards Castletownbere. When you get to Adrigole, turn left!. The Healy Pass is like the Legoland version of an Alpine climb. Someone else described it as looking lke a road that had been thrown out of an airplane from a great height. Up through a valley and short hairpins on the side of the hill - very slow going if the wind is the wrong way.

http://spicynoodles.net/images/224.jpg

In fact, starting in either Kenmare or Glengarriff, you can do a very nice 56 mile loop of both the Heal and Caha Passes.