Day 2 of The Ulster Way

Across the Mournes to Rostrevor (26 miles), up the main road to Newry, round Ring of Gullion (36 miles), up the Newry Canal path to Scarva, then onto our night stop at Tandragee.

14.5 hours in the saddle, 84 miles, over 2800 metres of vertical climbing - we did not for a minute imagine that Day 2 would be as hard on us as Day 1, but so it turned out, as much of the terrain was simply woeful. We were carrying or dragging our bikes for probably half of our total time, and it was energy-sapping.

We decided to forgo our original 7am start time, and instead aimed for 8, as Day 1 had killed us. We were again joined by Mickey and Declan, who are now part of the furniture, and Joni McGlade, fresh from the hospital meat-slab.

We headed up into the Mournes in strong wind and heavy rain, and the going was slow and draining, much of it unrideable. Picked up the infamous Rowan McMahon in Tollymore, and staggered on as best we could in the terrible weather. Joni headed for home after the descent off Butter Mountain. The next section round Hen Mountain was appalling, totally unrideable and frankly depressing.

Reached Rostrevor after 5.5 hours, utterly spent, and took a break for an hour to eat the cafe out of stock. The weather then turned fantastic, and stayed so for the rest of the day, with unbroken sunshine. James Keown joined us on the road bike for a spell, but had to head back to Newry when the off-road got REALLY offroad in Ravensdale.

The run up to Newry was great, with the wind on our tails. The Ring of Gullion was much tougher than we had anticipated, with long and punishing climbs aplenty, but some fantastic descents to boot. The highlight was soup, sandwiches and coffee supplied by Davy (the other Davy) and son in Forkhill, where just previously a bull had prevented us from taking our intended route across a field - the monster was just daring us to climb that gate!

Declan and Mickey had to leave us for home at Slieve Gullion car park, so that they could prepare to meet us again tomorrow, by which time it was getting dark.

The push on to Tandragee from Newry was a slog, but we were delighted to have Dale join us just outside Newry to guide us home. Big chinese on the table when we arrived at 10:45pm - sweet!

Looking forward to Day 3, Scarva to Belcoo, County Fermanagh.

Thanks to everyone for your messages of support and humour - much appreciated!!

(T, 2 days down! Half-pints at the ready!)

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Day 1 of The Ulster Way

Belfast to Newscastle. via Lisburn, Carryduff, Stormont, Holywood, round the outside of Ards Peninsula to Portaferry, over the ferry to Strangford, then the Lecale Way all the way to Newcastle.

13 hours in the saddle - it was murder. 110 miles, 60 of which was into a stiff sea breeze.

We left Belfast City Hall at 8am, a team of 8 folks, 5 of us destined for Newcastle, and were glad of the company of these and other folks we picked up in Holywood. Good to have Jonny Gallier, Tim Holmes, big John, Paul Kennedy, Rick Monro, and good to see Dusty on the beach, and Terry (start pulling the half-pints, Terry! Funny the way your house happens to be on the new route!)

Highlight was the Lecale Way, particularly the first off-road section, which reminded us of North Antrim coast.

Lowlight was the drag from Murlough Bay to Newcastle along the beach. 5 bedraggled souls completed the day - Davy, me, Mickey, Declan and Mark.

Great chinese and B&B - ready for Day 2 - over the Mournes to start!

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The Ulster Way - only 600 miles to go

We start our 600 mile Ulster Way circuit tomorrow morning, Saturday 3 May, leaving from Belfast City Hall at 8am.

The plan is to head out the tow-path to Lisburn, swing round through Carryduff, Stormont to Holywood, coastal path and road to Portaferry, over on the ferry to Strangford, then the Lecale Way all the way to Newcastle. The guts of 100 miles on day 1.

If you fancy the spin, meet ready to go at 8 am at the City Hall on Saturday 3 May, or at the car park at the entrance to Slieve Donard Hotel at 7am on Sunday morning, from where we will be attacking the Mournes and the Ring of Gullion, before heading up the Newry Canal path to Tandragee, where we finish day 2. From there, we go west, young man.

We are joined on the first 3 days by two Transalp Challenge 2008 hopefuls, Mickey and Declan, plus a few extra folks for day 2, and a few others will be joining us for bits of various days, if they are as good as their word.

The plan is to keep the site up to date every night, to prove we still live, but it may not happen.

See all trip detail at our Ulster Way Blog

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County Antrim Victory for New Team

"Tango & Cash Meet the Spartans" proved to be a synergistic collaboration indeed.

The newly-formed foursome (seen left, arriving in their 'ride' in full Trailbadger uniform) stormed their way to an impressive win at the Adventure Ireland race in County Antrim on Saturday 12 April.


First back to base after 6 hours of frantic racing, all checkpoints gathered, we were feeling smug.

Almost choking on our minestrone soup, we were gutted to be denied our rightful place as victors, after the sour-grapes invoking of an ancient tribal ruling from 1279, which states that, to win, you must have a girlie on your team. Ba!

Race report - we turned up, had a great day, we smoked the course, arrived back first, ate like kings, and are extremely thankful to Greg and team for a great day out!

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Tango & Cash Meet the Spartans!

Agents representing Tango & Cash and rival adventure racing team "Meet the Spartans" have concluded knife-edge negotiations over the past week to confirm the most exciting collaboration since Keith Harris first buried his arm up to the elbow in the lovable Orville.

"Tango & Cash Meet the Spartans" will compete as a team of four in the Adventure Ireland County Antrim adventure race on 12 April 2008. In the words of the great man himself: "I wish I could fly,... but I can't". Inspiring stuff.

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Tango & Cash Triumph at Baronscourt

There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth in the Sperrins on Saturday 29 March, as a slight departure from instructions by a couple of other teams gifted Tango & Cash with victory at the CCAR Baronscourt Adventure Race.

Baronscourt 2008 Race Results - XLS file, 33K


(A younger, fresher Tango & Cash at last year's Baronscourt race)

Warning: Race Report - danger of boredom ahead

The weather was brutal for the start, too wet even for our blazers, with lashing rain dampening everything including spirits. However, the rain was soon forgotten as the hooter sounded and 70 eejits galloped up a mucky slope in search of 2 bits of laminated paper.

Back down the slope, the car was our brief campaign headquarters. We quickly marked our checkpoints up, and were the second team to hit the trails, just behind Team Purple 2 (the Purps), who set a helluva pace.

We tried to stick with them as best we could, with NTSR right up on us too. The Purps, just ahead, were extremely gracious in telling us where the first few checkpoints were, but after they cocked one up a bit later on, we decided we couldn’t risk listening anymore, heheheee!

A long slog and a superb tarmac descent took us to the main road, and then the Ulster American Folk Park. The traditionally-clad Folk Park team were all very cheerful in their duties, if a tad bemused at all the frantic activity, and we were soon in and out and back on the bikes.

Still pretty much neck and neck with NTSR and the Purps, the superb tarmac descent was markedly less enjoyable as a climb, but we all dragged ourselves up and slogged out the climb back up into the forest.

The Purps were FAST up the long drag to the forest and we lost sight of them, but for some reason they stopped for a KitKat half-way down the descent towards the bike-drop, and we whizzed past them in full tuck.

Just as we entered the gates of the estate, Davy lost his chain, but thankfully we were freewheeling too fast to pedal anyway, and we made it down to the bike-drop first.

We picked up our map and headed down to TA3, then wondered where the other guys had gone to, as they would definitely have taken us easily on the run down - we assumed (correctly, as it turned out) that they had headed straight out to clear the map checkpoints instead of visiting TA3 first (where they would have learned to only collect 3 markers at a time), and this ultimately proved to be their downfall.

We decided to hit the boats first. The weather had by this time turned gorgeous, and in the beauty of the scene paddling up the lake, we allowed our minds to wander briefly to consider how jarred off the guys were going to be when they finally made it to TA3 with a bunch of markers already picked up! But, snapping ourselves back to life, we hardened our hearts and got back to task.

We picked up the 2 lake markers, beached the boat to pick up the one on the earth bank, and headed back to TA, staggered round another 2 loops to get the rest, and we (Davy, that is) also managed to nick an extra 3 minutes at the bean bag task.

Utterly spent, barely shuffling, and bereft of any more expletives, we pulled off our bibs and collapsed into the vat of soup at the finish at 3:20pm, after 4hrs and 5 minutes of racing; trying to hang with the guys on the bike section wasted us, and made this definitely our most tiring and painful race to date.

Nice buns again, Joan. A genuine thanks to all the folks at CCAR, who, in the face of many unseen challenges, put on a great event every time. Fantastic fun to take part in, and superb innovations to be found in every race. Well done, guys.

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The Ulster Way - 600 Miles, 6 Days, 0 Gears

The new Ulster Way is a proposed 600 mile loop of Northern Ireland over roads, tracks, mountains and bogland. When completed, the new route will take in many of Northern Ireland’s portfolio of waymarked ways.

Tango & Cash are attempting to complete the entire proposed route in six consecutive days all under our own steam, on foot and by singlespeed mountain bike, beginning 3 May 2008. To the best of our knowledge, this has never been attempted before.

The Ulster Way in Six Consecutive Days Blog

Is it doable? Who knows, and we are not really fit for it, but we’ll give it a crack anyway, and see how we get on. We intend to make an early start each morning, and we will finish when we finish, most likely in a quite appalling physical and mental state, according to our calculations!

If you would like to join us for a day, or part of a day, email us or leave us a message with your email address - your company is almost certain to be a breath of fresh air, no matter how tedious you may be deemed in other social contexts.

(Note that cycling is not sanctioned on much of the route, so anyone joining the party will need to be prepared to carry their bike for some, possibly long, sections)

Worse Things Happen at Sea

Whilst this is first and foremost a personal challenge, we are going to try and raise as much money as we can for the RNLI, which anyone would recognise is an extremely worthy cause.

Our Ulster Way route will take us within touching distance of all 9 of Northern Ireland’s lifeboat stations.

Make a donation to RNLI at www.justgiving.com/ulsterway.

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