With a few extra days off work around Thanksgiving, John and I decided to head off to Ireland to visit his family and friends and maybe even get in some nice rides. Last year, John travelled over on his own, and had some bad luck with icy roads and just managed to escape before the country was shut down by snow. He did get in one great ride with his brother David last year. Our hope was for the three of us to do this route together this year. We were quite lucky with much better weather. We had two days of brilliant sunshine, moderate temperature, lots of wind, and only one day with heavy showers.

We decided to bring my coupled Seven and John would borrow his brother's Weigle. It's handy to be the same size. John and David save a lot of hassle (and baggage fees) being able to ride each others bikes when they visit.

The flight from Boston to Dublin is always brutal. Our flight departed at 6PM Boston time and landed before midnight Boston time - 5AM Dublin time. So were were just getting tired when we arrived. John's saint of a sister, Suzanne picked us up at the airport. We crashed after breakfast and woke up in time for lunch. I reassembled my bike, and we walked around the neighborhood to clear the cobwebs from our brains.

Riding with Declan