Dublin & Wicklow

Dublin cyclists live twenty minutes from two very different kinds of riding. North: the lanes beyond Skerries — flat, fast, coastal, where the training groups hammer along in echelons when the wind comes off the Irish Sea. South: the Wicklow Mountains — Military Road, Sally Gap, Glenmacnass, the kind of climbs that break you with gradient and reward you with isolation. The city itself is a reasonable launch pad. Marlay Park, Bull Island, Dun Laoghaire pier — all standard meetup points for weekend groups. Head south-west through the Featherbed or south-east via Enniskerry and within 30km you're on roads where the only traffic is sheep. The range is what makes it. A Tuesday evening spin on the canals is 50km of dead-flat towpath riding, social pace, home for dinner. A Saturday epic — Blessington, Glendalough, Sally Gap, back via Glencree — is 150km and 2,500m of climbing through terrain that regularly surprises visitors with how remote it feels for a capital city. Wicklow's roads are generally well-surfaced but narrow. The R115 (Military Road) is the most iconic stretch: 30km of high moorland with views to the coast on clear days. In winter, ice and crosswinds make the gap roads serious; in summer, the light lasts until 10pm and the mountains are empty. For interval work: the N81 corridor (Blessington direction) offers long, flat, low-traffic stretches ideal for threshold sessions. The climb up Kilmashogue from Marlay Park is a classic VO2 test piece — short, steep, repeatable.