Day 5 : Friday 6th April 2012 Balina - Donegal town Approx 124 K
Breakfast in Ballina was comical. For some reason none of us wanted to get going so we ate and talked and ate and then talked some more, after we had eventually packed up and toyed with our bikes for as long as possible we got on the road. Procrastination is exhausting! It turned out to be more relaxing and enjoyable to just be on the bike cycling!
The trip to Sligo was plain sailing, we made great time and I actually remember very little of it. We had a nice lunch in a hotel in Sligo and had to race onto the bikes to get going because it was so cold outside. Cold seemed to sap motivation above all else.
We were cycling at a warm up pace, on the hard shoulder, on our way out of Sligo three abreast when our first real crash happened. I was the middle cyclist of the three and didn’t notice a cat’s eye (a ‘safety’ device used in road marking). I avoided it with my front wheel but my back wheel caught in the cat’s eye. The result was that my bike suddenly pivoted to the right and I collided with Jonny's back wheel. He went tumbling into the middle of the road. I came off my bike too and vividly recalled watching jonny roll and then turn to behind him to see if there was any oncoming traffic. Thankfully there wasn’t because if there had been we could have been in real trouble.
(Lots of wind coming in from the coast on Day 5 but lots of scenery to take our minds off it!)
Jonny’s back wheel was badly buckled and his bottle cage came off but he just had a minor scratch as did I. My bike was fine. We got back on the road but I was shaking with the adrenaline and nerves for the next twenty kilometres or so. At one point Bruce offered me a bar as we were cycling and although I was starving I was too nervous to take a hand off the handlebars. Thankfully that passed and we put it behind us. I think it was a real moment where we remembered how dangerous it is cycling on busy roads. Suddenly academic statistics about cyclists being killed become much more personal and emotive.
We passed through Mullaghmore where there is an excellent triathlon every year and then Bundoran which was bigger than I remember it. We stopped in a hotel there to fuel up, use the facilities and to give another cyclist a chance to join in. I think Bundoran was only forty kilometres from Doneagal town but it felt like one of the longer phases of the journey. The late start, long lunch, unplanned time spent stopped after crashing and the emotional and physical energy used up from the crash all had me exhausted. I was too tired to follow simple directions on the phone to find the B&B from the Donegal town.
When we arrived in the B&B in Donegal it was warm and cosy and one of the gang had brought a tin of his Mum’s homemade biscuits which we devoured. A new cyclist and Ironman in training joined us and the mood was really high. The end was in sight and for me the last two days had been much easier than the first three so I was feeling tired but quite fresh. We went out for dinner in Donegal town which was lovely and got an early night. It wasn't the same without Cara who had was home taking Care of Fauna but the plan was to get straight on a bus back to Cara the following evening so I was looking forward to that.
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