Sally Gap

C-S-B

Hello there!

Any riders from Ireland on here? Im hoping to cycle the Sally Gap tomorrow, but Im not too sure where it is...

I live in Dublin so Ill be coming from the north, and Im hoping to keep it below ~110km, so if the approach to it is from the south, I might have to leave it for another day...


Oh and has anyone cycled/ driven this (http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/ireland/d ... 5590817042) road before? Is it actually a continuous road but just marked wrongly?

Thanks muchly!

LangerDan

Firstly, that road between Glencullen and Kilmallin is continuous - if you look on Google Earth, the road continues past the quarry, there is just an error in the road overlay.

Sally Gap is shown on your map - if you go West along the R116 until it joins the R115 and then come South along the R115 until it intersects with the R759 marked "Kippure" - that junction is Sally Gap

One loop that wouldn't be too far off your 110km is to come via Stepaside, down to Enniskerry and out towards Powerscourt Estate and up the climb to Glencree, left up past the road to the Kippure transmitter and along to Sally Gap, left at the top down past Luggala (watch the left-hander!) and left onto the R755. As you head down the Long Hill towards Kilmacanogue, left again towards Enniskerry - lopp done!

There is a lot of climbing, some quite steep and the weather can turn very quickly up there so watch out.

Enjoy!

(BTW, I think I saw a notice about a weekend spin over Sally Gap on the message board on www.braywheelers.com today)

SBezza

LangerDan wrote:

There is a lot of climbing, some quite steep and the weather can turn very quickly up there so watch out.

This very true, I went over the Sally Gap in June, and it was freezing, much colder than when in Laragh.

Johnny G

SBezza wrote:

This very true, I went over the Sally Gap in June, and it was freezing, much colder than when in Laragh.

Was that on the Wicklow 200? If so, it certainly was cold up there on the day. I went up again from the Laragh side a couple of days later and it was the same, beautiful down below but blowing a hoolie at Sally Gap. It's a great climb up from Laragh though, with a superb view down the valley from the waterfall.

C-S-B

Thanks Langerdan; turns out Id been there already then :S

I thought it was meant to be near Laragh, so I plotted a route that took me through there.

Would have been a great route from Laragh to Sally Gap, but the wind just made it soooo hard going; I was literally doing 15km/h on the flat at times. :oops: That climb by the waterfall does afford fantastic views though!

Oh and that road that I asked about was indeed continuous, and bloody hell that was steep! Ive made a note to go up it the other way one day soon, but going down that in the wet was a very slow brake-grabbing affair!

I ended up going Edmonstown - Glencullen - Kilmalin - Onagh bridge - Djouce woods - Laragh - Kippure (Sally Gap) - Powerscourt mountain - Tibradden; 104.47km, 2026m of ascent (acording to the Garmin..) !!

SBezza

Johnny G wrote:

SBezza wrote:

This very true, I went over the Sally Gap in June, and it was freezing, much colder than when in Laragh.

Was that on the Wicklow 200?

No, I was on holiday in June, and did a 50 mile route up to the Sally Gap and back through Laragh on my mountain bike. Was wet in Avoca, but freezing and blowing a hoolie at the Gap. The ride from the top back to Laragh was hellish, especially with no proper wet weather gear on, and a constant headwind.

LangerDan

C-S-B wrote:

Thanks Langerdan; turns out Id been there already then :S

I thought it was meant to be near Laragh, so I plotted a route that took me through there.

Would have been a great route from Laragh to Sally Gap, but the wind just made it soooo hard going; I was literally doing 15km/h on the flat at times. :oops: That climb by the waterfall does afford fantastic views though!

Oh and that road that I asked about was indeed continuous, and bloody hell that was steep! Ive made a note to go up it the other way one day soon, but going down that in the wet was a very slow brake-grabbing affair!

I ended up going Edmonstown - Glencullen - Kilmalin - Onagh bridge - Djouce woods - Laragh - Kippure (Sally Gap) - Powerscourt mountain - Tibradden; 104.47km, 2026m of ascent (acording to the Garmin..) !!

The one nearest to Laragh (North West of Laragh) is the Wicklow Gap. South West of Laragh, there are also climbs like Glenmalure / Drumgoff and Slieve Mann


If you are determined to add further climbing, you can always jump the gate and use the cul-de-sac roads to the Kippure transmitter or the one to the ESB storage reservoir at Turlough Hill off the Wicklow Gap. Its many years since I rode these so I don't know how accessible they are now.

Tiny Explosions

If you like regular spins around the Wicklow mountains (usually including Sally Gap at the very least), we run one most Saturday mornings at 9 or 10... boards.ie is the place to find the info -look out for threads entitled 'saturday spin' -everyone's welcome!

Tiny Explosions

LangerDan wrote:

If you are determined to add further climbing, you can always jump the gate and use the cul-de-sac roads to the Kippure transmitter or the one to the ESB storage reservoir at Turlough Hill off the Wicklow Gap. Its many years since I rode these so I don't know how accessible they are now.

It's still accessible, and fine to do -but is tough (did it a couple of months ago, and the last dig is feckin annoying!)

C-S-B

I might just take you up on that someday Tiny Explosions, but I definitly cant make it this weekend

Thanks for the link!