Stage 2 - Clonakilty - Kilarney - 23 August

Thursday started with a question, "would you like to join us on the scenic route?" Of course I would.

We left Cork on the direct route to Clonakilty but soon took a turn toward the south coast of Ireland. The roads are very different from back home, rarely maintaining the same surface, width or camber in the curves for more that a few miles. On the short detour of about 20 miles mile we encountered at least six or seven different road surfaces on the same route.

Here I am with the headlands in the background. Dennis, of whom I'll speak more shortly, gave us a history lesson which included the fact that the Lusitania sank just off that headland.


And this is Stephen McCarthy, my young photographer, who was unsteady in yesterday's race. If you put 240 lbs. on the back of a small motorcycle it really can be the tail wagging the dog. Amazingly after he got back on after this stop he and I gelled and started riding as a team. We still could not go as fast as the rest who were on bigger bikes with smaller riders but we deported ourselves well.

Here we have Dennis (mentioned above). Dennis was the second person on the crew that I met back in the parking lot in Kilkenny. When we met, after short introductory comments, he asked "what part of the states are you from?"
I replied "Pennsylvania."

And he said, "Ah, yeh, I lived in Williamsport before I joined the Marines."

What are the odds that you'll travel to a foreign country and the second person you'll meet is from the small city where you live? It turns out that Dennis used to drink at the Shamrock, a small bar a five minute walk from my home.


The Irish Garda nicely placed in front of the Church in Clonakilty.


The start line in Clonakilty.


This is Kevin who, with Steve, John, Pat and Dennis, have worked hard to make sure I don't make too many mistakes.


And here are the aforementioned Steve and Dennis.


And the Lord Mayor of Clonakilty with Alan Rushton, the Event Director.


The fellow with the hat is Brian, our TV producer and one very cool guy. He rode into the hotel in Cork on the back of a motorcycle.


The grand church in Clonakilty.


A typical Irish backroad, single-track with a 50 mph speed limit for those metrically challenged and you'd have to be more than metrically challenged to ride that road at 50.


Here comes the bunch into Skibbereen.


Looking back down from the road from the first King of the Mountain hot spot on today's stage at Glenlough.


Here's the bunch chasing the leaders near the Sprint hot spot in Glengariff.


The hard but sunny face of Ireland at the second KOM at Derreenacarrin.

This is the descent from Healy Pass.


But before you go down you must climb up.


No fun for this bunch but some one has to do it.


And here comes the winner of this KOM, Kristan House of Navigators.


Looking across the bay at Kenmare.


And the last KOM of the day at Moll's Pass.


And here they come through the finish in Kilarney.


That's my friend, co-race organizer and the guy who made it possible for me to be here, David Kalman of Shadetree Sports.


And to think, if I didn't have the motor press job I might have been chaperoning these two ladies. It's better this way.


Our hotel tonight is the Malton, about 50 meters from the Finish Line. We had a great dinner in their fine restaurant. While dining I noted that the race officials were dining at the same time. This is almost unheard of in my experience. Usually we're still trying to generate credible results while dinner is going on. More than once I've missed dinner while working on results.

At breakfast I met Seamus Shortall and his assistant Ger Madden. These are the men responsible for getting these results out. Most nights they had the results in the hands of the teams before we left the finish area ... phenomenal performance! When we met Seamus said "Oh, you're Tom Balaban. I found your blog." He was kind enough not to tell me what he thought of it.