Posted October 7, 2016 by taraustralis6 Comments aroundirelandonapushie

How NOT to bicycle from Cork to Cobh

Ah. #AroundIrelandOnAPushie has been such an epic learning experience and I just recently learnt how NOT to bicycle from Cork to Cobh.

It’s quite a funny story, really. Here’s how that epic day panned out…

I made it into the Cork train station after an epic day.

However, my epic day started in Dublin where I had to hightail it to the RTE studios for a chat with RTE2’s Breakfast Republic. I was less than one kilometre away from the studio when I had my back tyre blow out. No dramas – I limped my way though the RTE campus and hobbled up the stairs into the lobby of the radio station. Within seconds, I flipped the bicycle and started my epic dash to change the back wheel. (There was so much EPIC – the reason why every second word is EPIC)

Epic.

This was on my second tyre I have ever changed in my life. Whilst in the middle of the epic 10 min tyre change – Ray D’Arcy appears. Poor bloke. He didn’t know what to take of me. I announced to him “Hey, I’m the Aussie girl you chatted with about three weeks ago! How you going?!” He looked at me with some sort of shock – get me outta here – deer in headlights look and proceeded to walk backwards with a DO NOT WANT step.

Exhibit A:

To be fair, he was suited up and super clean and I was a greased up monkey. Did I mention that my bicycle tyres as a child consisted of metal rims. I didn’t have a clue what a tyre was until recently!

So, 10 mins later, I was ready to go – walked down the RTE flame trench into the Breakfast Republic’s studio (they are in the basement). We had a great chat – I gave them an update about #AroundIrelandOnAPushie.Then, sprinted to Dublin’s financial district for a podcast with The Tech Doctor. Once that was done and dusted – I made sure to get a few laughs in with Irish comedian Andrew Stanley and then hightailed it to the Heuston Train station. An already surreal day became a little more weird when I saw the same guy who I was on the train from Galway with the day before. We shared a Guinness and awkward conversation about who was stalking whom. It’s defo not me – (it seems that I somehow attract Galway stalkers – that’s another story for a later time) and we parted ways.

After much needed rest on the train and adventure writing on Taraustralis, I made it into Cork. I bicycled from the station to meet my mate Ronan. Ronan is a pretty cool cat. He’s raced and sailed around the world on some of the most amazing yachts on this planet and also had a successful band called The Empire Lights. He’s a pretty awesome dude. He’s also the guy who bicycled from Sydney to Melbourne on a $50 bicycle for his mate’s wedding. Yep, this is the guy who gave me the idea to bicycle #AroundIrelandOnAPushie. Pretty crazy to put a face to the story, hey! Anyway, we hopped on our bicycles and headed to Cobh. Now you’re all caught up on the backstory – so here’s where things get interesting. We’re bicycling along like an Irish bikie gang – nothing scary or illegal… but idiot me decided to go in for the high-five and me carrying some kind of crazy pannier weight, my poor little bicycle is already off balance and I took out a car. A parked car. Wow, that was a first.

So this is how it happened: There was a high-five followed by a slight lean to the left followed by me face planting into a car mirror (luckily it was a retractable mirror) and then my left shoulder and knee hit the car door and then I firmly planted my knee into the pavement. Panniers went flying. I laughed hysterically… this was my very first car crash. Oh, and totally my fault – I hit the car. The car was stationary. Moral to the story, DO NOT HIGH FIVE unless you’re an experienced high-fiver. I am not and this proves it. The only damage was to my ego.

I, then, scraped myself off the pavement, deemed my knee movable and carried on my way to Cobh. There was another 12 kilometres to go, a ferry and a massive hill to navigate. The ferry driver took mercy on me and did not charge me the €1.50 for the crossing. What a good bloke. Oh and a lot of you guys will get this next photo – it contains my favourite word: Whilst. You’re welcome.