The great big sanity cycle

Looking back on a two week tour of the west and the midlands that Mark and Ellie took when Covid lockdown restrictions eased in August 2020.

The Cut in Co Laois, where Coillte have their work cut out for them preventing graffiti. We found it, but not until after a long, hard slog! Photo: Mark Graham

Remember the insanity of Covid lockdowns?

Whilst home-loving, well-heeled folk were revelling in their sourdough starters and their binge-watched series, for those of us who like to get around, as well as for huge numbers of people in insecure accommodation and unstable home environments, times weren’t so easy.

For Mark, whose life has often included a lot of gigging, both in Ireland and internationally, and for me, whose bread and butter was often travelling the country interviewing people with tales to tell, and for us as a couple, for whom high mileage was a part of almost everything we did, 2020 was a kick in the teeth, to put it mildly.

This is not to diminish the stories a lot of other people might tell about that strange and terrible year, but for us it was, in hindsight, a time of crisis.

There were family crises, identity crises, career crises, financial crises, and, probably most alarmingly, some episodes of extremely Bad Hair.

And so, when there was a lifting of government-imposed travel restrictions in August of 2020, both of us were hungry for our bikes, and for the road.

With international travel feeling extremely uncertain - when would another ludicrous and draconian set of restrictions be imposed, and where? - we did what so many Irish people did that summer and decided on a staycation of sorts, albeit one undertaken in our own inimitable (is that a euphemism?) style.

We carved ourselves out a two-week break and set off on our bikes to explore the best, and sometimes hilliest, Ireland has to offer.

Week 1 of our two-week 2020 Sanity Cycle: Coomanaspic on the Ring of Kerry, waterfall swims in a Beara location that remains secret, wild camping near Kenmare, tetrapod tracks on Valentia, and getting the Valentia ferry back to the mainland to make the Tralee train to the midlands for week two.

Mark set off alone from Waterford on his bike, cycled to the hilly Northside of Cork city where I was based with my family, and from there, we headed west, along the Lee Valley and to Gougane Barra to join the Beara Way, eventually taking a train in Tralee and cycling in the upper stretches of the Shannon and some of the Slieve Blooms, making our way into Dublin along old canal paths to stow our bikes and return home.

Memories get hazy: when you look through your camera roll, many things are surprising.

Not least that we got caught up in a storm in Derrynane, cycled the notoriously taxing hills of both Coomanaspic in Co Kerry and The Cut in Co Laois, wild-camped in some amazing places, and proved, at least to ourselves, that sometimes the adventure doesn’t have to be on a grand scale.

We had the best fun. Sometimes we were cold and wet. My catchphrase - “it’s not as bad as it looks!” - got several outings. On one memorably rain day we made a total of 14km to Birr, Co Offaly before calling it a day and checking into a B&B.

Week Two of our 2020 Sanity Cycle took in everything from the ancient monastic settlement of Clonamacnoise to wild camping in the Slieve Bloom Mountains to finding, ahem, "The Cut" in Co Laois, where Coillte have their work cut out for them preventing graffiti, to cycling into Dublin along the old canal paths.

But in part - time to get out the violins around now - it proved to me that on life’s adventure, one of the best things you can have is a good travelling companion. When everything is a source of interest and fun and you’re always laughing and learning, you know you’re on to a good thing.

There are many things that are a challenge when you contemplate cycling around the world for two years.

Most importantly there’s leaving, and missing, family.

There are various projects and hopes and dreams that are put on the back burner. There’s the sense that you’re somehow reneging on responsibilities you never quite signed up for in the first place. There are worries about how your body will respond to the challenges you set it.

But, for me at least, one of the challenges is not the companionship, and knowing that you are meeting your challenges alongside another.

Years ago, I was cycling up a mountain behind Mark, possibly singing, definitely laughing and sweating, when I thought to myself: I could go anywhere with this man. I want to go anywhere with this man.

If the sanity cycle of 2020 proved it to me, I know that cycling around the world for two years from 2025-2027 will test it. And I’m game, if he is.

Join us.

I promise…it’s not as bad as it looks!