Sunday 2nd June19
The rain cleared away and we set off in the dry 🙂 After a short while we turned off on another Garmin short cut.. narrow lane, grass in the middle, loose gravel and mud. I thought Fred won’t be liking this on his Sport/Tourer! but I could see that we only had a couple of km or so to go to the main road and his headlight was still visible behind Kevin, so he was coping with it. Finally we came to a few houses and the road turned back to tarmac; we came round a corner and the grass had thinned out and I could see there was a long straight around the next bend. Kevin and I opened up on the straight and stopped at the T junction.. where was Fred??? After a short while no sign of him! he’d either stopped.. or worse!!
We hurried back and round the first bend we found Fred and 2 guys pulling his bike out of the hedge 😱 He’d crashed on the tarmac bend, having got through all the nasty stuff! As it happens Fred had picked a great place to crash.. right outside a lovely family’s house 😊The bike was pushed into their drive to inspect the damage.. Fred was fine apart from being shaken up and banging his hip as he fell and a badly bruised ego; the bike was scrapped up on the fairing.
The house was owned by a really nice friendly couple; the man was Dutch and his wife English, they had lived in Ireland for many years. The son made coffee while we looked at the bike and found the left indicator had been ripped off, the gear lever bent and the left foot peg snapped off and the fairing on that side scuffed and scratched and the crank case almost worn through. Could have been worse; but impossible to ride with out the foot rest.. not good news 😱 Inevitably there was some gentle mickey taking for Fred to endure.. this was his second rented bike broken in less than a week!! 🤣
So what do we do now?? Amazingly and very lucky for us they had a 4 wheel drive SUV and trailer that would take the bike; the son offered to take Fred to the hotel in Killarney. Fred was loaded up with his bike and we waved him off within an hour of his crash. Was that lucky..or what?
Kevin and I discussed whether we should ride straight to Killarney to meet Fred at the hotel, or take the planned longer Wild Atlantic Way route and then over the mountain via the Bridia Valley. We decided Fred was a resourceful guy and Kevin (Fred’s cousin) had come a long way to see Ireland, so we chose the pretty route. And pretty it was, along the coast road twisting and turning with the sea on our left. It was very windy and the waves were crashing against the rocks, the mountains on our right were shrouded in mist and rain.. Hmmm ominous!
It was a great ride along the Wild Atlantic Way.. and boy was it WILD in the wind. We stopped for coffee and picked up a message from Fred; he was at the hotel and enquiring how long we would be. I replied “about 2 hrs”, his reply suggested he wasn’t too happy about that; however, we had no option but to carry on the route from where we were over the Bridia mountains and the Ballaghisheen Pass.
We turned off and started to climb the mountain road into the rain, it was cold and wet, the road was very narrow and twisty and the wind was so strong it was hard to keep the bike straight; progress was slow. The scenery was spectacular, even better on a nice day no doubt. Every now and again we would meet a car or camper van on a tight corner with hardly any space to pass. The wind and rain were relentless, but strangely it was very enjoyable; we took it easy and stopped for a rest with only sheep for company and a quaint dilapidated cottage on the hillside.
We carried on through Molls Gap, a very narrow road with high rocks on both sides and entered Killarney National Park. Very pretty with more of the purple Wild Rhododendrons growing everywhere. Finally we entered Killarney and the traffic came to a standstill with a queue as far as we could see. The whole town was swamped with bikers attending the Bikefest: purely a co-incidence of course that I had booked us to stay at this time!! So being bikers we rode between the cars and finally got to the event itself. Harley Davidsons everywhere. Picking our way through we found the hotel.
We met Fred in the bar; he had a bit of a whinge that we had deserted him, but I think he was just feeling sorry for himself; a few beers and Jamisons and more “drugs” from Kevin and he cheered up a bit. We discussed what had caused the crash, apparently it wasn’t catching the grass centre strip that put him down as we had thought. He had a head cam on at the time and the footage showed the back of the bike stepping out on the tarmac as he came round the bend before the grass..its a mystery ( I’ll post the video later if he lets me) 🙂
Fred made it to the last piece of grass on the road 
Fred’s foot rest made the marks on the way to the hedge
While we had been riding Fred had been resourceful, as predicted; he had found a hardware store and bought a mole grip which he had attached as a makeshift foot rest.. whether it would be rideable for any distance was debatable; the mirror was re-attached with Gaffa tape. We’ll see in the morning. We really were so lucky that there were those kind people around to help us out (thank you again), otherwise we could have been there for hours👍
Fred decided to rest up in his room while Kev and I went to check out the Bikefest and get the T-shirt. When we arrived “The Harleys” were on the outside stage playing popular rock songs; they were actually very good. Lunch was a hotdog washed down with a couple of bottles of Bud, then we went to check out the vast array of Harley Davidson with reg plates from all over Europe.. very popular this event over 3 days and a lot of guys we talked to came every year. In the evening the headline act was an AC/DC tribute band called Hells Bells. They would start at 11.30 so we decide to come back later to hear them. Kev is a big fan having seen AC/DC live 3 times! I’m more into Metallica myself 🤪
The evening gig was held in doors, which was just as well as it was cold outside. Hells Bells came on just after 11:30pm, Kev and I took of positions quiet near the front. The audience was made up of a complete cross section of people; just in front of us a couple were “head banging” to the music..the girl looked like she had a mental condition, shaking her head and swinging her hair round; boyfriend looked like a bald version of her 🤪
The lead guitarist did a very good impression of Angus Young of AC/DC..dressed as a school boy and constantly charging around the stage while playing his guitar. Very impressive actually; the guy must have been exhausted by the end. The singer’s throat had to have been really sore at the end though all the screaming..check this out!https://youtu.be/HSzuMWLt_rg Kevin is an AC/DC fan so he was happy…Give me Metallica any day 🤪
By 01:00 we had had enough and went to look for a taxi..none around, not looking good. We saw a shuttle bus going to the centre of town and jumped on thinking we would have better luck finding a taxi there. The only ones we saw were already taken and lots of people waiting. We saw a woman getting into a cab and Kev rushed up to ask if we could share the taxi..the driver said yes, not too sure the woman liked the idea! Well done Kevin..so we made it back to the hotel and bed after 01:30.
Next morning we have a planned departure to Limerick following a windy route along the Wild Atlantic Way; more rain is forecast and will Fred’s bike be rideable? Tune in to the next post to find out how we got on 🙂