I spent four days cycling around Dublin and the Wicklow mountains to the south of the city. Overall it was a great experience. Dublin is quite a good city for cycling and the Wicklow mountains were excellent for training.
Bike Lanes are well maintained and thoughtfully created. I like the way they are integrated into the road rather than pushing you onto a pavement where you have to give way to pedestrians and side streets. My friend from Dublin, said, that since the cycle lanes have appeared in Dublin there has been a noticeable increase in cycling rates. He felt drivers give a little more room. That is just one person’s opinion. But, cycling around Dublin I felt the cycle paths helped with feeling like I deserved to be on the road.
When cycling around some cities, you really get the feeling that drivers can’t believe a cyclist is actually allowed to be on a road.
Cycling Wrong Way Down One Way Street
This is a one way street, however a bike lane has been put in to allow cyclists to cycle the opposite way down. Good to see a common sense approach being taken.
The Dublin weather means you are going to be getting some rain most days, this rainbow is after a frequent shower.
Dublin makes a great base for cycling into the Wicklow mountains, there are some great climbs around Enniskerry and South Dublin.
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You must have been in some good mood to actually write a positive review of Dublins cycle lanes. They are actually some of the worst I have ever seen, that mixed with the inability of drivers to accept them (parking on them, driving over them etc). Ireland has very little provision for cyclists and while Dublins lanes are bad enough, you should see the other cities.
Nice article, but over four days you may not have fully experienced the high quality cycle lane system enjoyed by regular Dublin cycle commuters – I recommend this link for a more thorough look at what is more commonly faced (clearly unplanned cycle lanes with a vast array of obstacles incl. parked cars, boulders… etc)
Cycling in Wicklow is fantastic though with some great scenery and some fantastic climbs – I’d strongly recommend taking in a few days of cycling there if the opportunity presents itself.
I don’t know which Dublin you were in, but it certainly was not the same one that I live, and cycle daily in, in Ireland. The cycle lane network is an absolute joke. Cars park in them, wheelie bins are placed in them, people walk, run, jog, push babies in buggies in them and by and large are ignorant entirely of their existence. More often than not they are on the footpath, ceasing to exist at junctions (and worse still ceding right of way over any vehicles turning into the minor roads the cross), detouring around bus-stops and in many cases being more undulating than the purpose built trails in the mountains as they negotiate driveways particularly along the N11. They often disappear into the ether only to reappear again a few hundred metres down the road – sorry path. In short, it is FAR more dangerous to use them than not.
I suggest you take a look at these pictures for some prime examples of our ‘well maintained and thoughtfully created’ cycletracks : http://www.flickr.com/groups/dublincyclelanes/
In fact so badly are they designed, that the Minister for Transport has recently acknowledged this, and has announced that he will remove from law the article stating that cyclists MUST use one where it is provided!