MOUNTAIN BIKING:If you go down to the woods today . . . you're likely to meet mountain bikers blazing a trail through the jewels in Coillte's outdoor investment crown
SOMETIMES, SHOWING FOREIGNERS around Ireland can be a little embarrassing. Pointing to the rolling Dublin Mountains, for example, and singing their praises always raises a few smiles.
"Those aren't mountains," I've been told in sniggering tones on more than one occasion. "Those are hills." While most of our so-called mountains might not have the stature to host adventure sports such as snowboarding, skiing and climbing, there is at least one extreme sport that is rapidly finding a home in Irish hills - mountain-biking.
Sean Herlihy is, by his own admission, "a bit respectable", and the sportsman generally turns up meetings "wearing a tie". However, this doesn't stop him getting covered head to toe in mud from the saddle of his mountain bike, and there seems to be more than a hint of nostalgia when it comes to talking about the old days of biking illegally around Ireland.
Herlihy is a director of Cycling Ireland, the governing body of the sport, and has also set up Mountain Biking Ireland, a group for responsible mountain biking and trail development. In the past, he says, to become a mountain biker, "you had to be in the clique, know somebody or know how to handle yourself in the outdoors, because there were no official trails to go to. It was all a bit illegal and a little bit cowboy in a way."
The situation has improved rapidly in recent years, and Coillte, which manages much of Ireland's forest, mountain and bog land, has recently launched a website (www.coillteoutdoors.ie) to help get people enjoying Ireland's great outdoors. The jewel in Coillte's outdoor investment crown is its series of mountain bike trails, purpose-built facilities that take riders through rugged landscapes for a thrilling biking experience.
"Since they've created these trail centres, you just turn up," says Herlihy. "There is a nice map in the car park, a set of arrows that bring you all the way round, there's a website with downloadable maps, and some of them have a cafe and a bike wash and bike shop. The whole experience is far more accessible than before, so you're seeing a huge increase in numbers."
The tracks are not just for adrenaline junkies though. Coillte's website classifies the trails into varying degrees, from family cycling to severe.
Bill Murphy, Coillte's recreation manager, says: "In two of our forest parks, Curragh Chase and Portumna, we've put in family cycling trails. The gradients are easy, there is no technically difficult stuff. Those are for the casual cyclist and then there are the outer loops of the Ballyhoura trails, where you have very technical cycling for up to 80km, so you have to be fairly fit for that."
The tracks are attracting interest both here and abroad and Coillte turned to trail designer and mountain-bike master Dafydd Davis to help build them.
"There's a growing recognition in Ireland at a national level that if we want recreational infrastructure we'll have to resource it in the future," says Murphy. "The mountain bike trail cost about €35 a linear metre."
All of the land on which the trails have been built is owned by Coillte, so there are no problems with regards to access. That doesn't mean it is always a smooth ride though.
"You perhaps get some difficulty with other outdoor users on a mountain who may not exactly be delighted to find you out there," says Herlihy diplomatically. "There is what we call the red-sock brigade, who has enough equipment to get himself up Everest, and there he is trekking his way through a forest, and he meets a bike coming towards him and is generally unimpressed that somebody has the audacity to cycle a bike in there.
"Up until Coillte opened these trails, there was absolutely nowhere you could legally mountain-bike," Herlihy says. "Illegal is a harsh word, but [it was] certainly unauthorised."
Conservation is also another issue, but Coillte says the tracks will limit people's impact on the environment. "It's only a corridor about a metre and a half wide," points out Murphy. It the trail is built and marked out, people will generally stick to it rather than wandering randomly into the countryside. "If you build a trail, you guide people through it. We're not talking about building manicured trails, you are limiting the impact. Because of the nature of the soft, wet soils in Ireland, they suffer from erosion, and if you go to the Wicklow Mountains you can see that. We are doing work to harden trails, not necessarily to make them easier, but as a conservation tool."
The first step for any would-be king of the mountains is to get a bike - and, let's face it, the gadgets are half the fun. "For the first time you have to be paying about €400 brand new, or half that second-hand," says Herlihy. "Then you go out and decide if you want to get something a bit better and then you go out and remortgage the house to get some fancy flying machines.
"If you're going for a €400 bike, then you are talking a hardtail bike with travel forks with around three or four inches suspension on the front. Disc brakes would be ideal. All you really need are front suspension forks and disc brakes. When you get to the stage where you get serious about it than you are looking at spending €1,000.
"What's more important is making sure you have the basic gear that makes it easier and more comfortable to get around. You have to have a helmet, and a decent pair of cycling shorts and gloves make it a far more pleasurable experience than having a fancy little gadget on your bike that doesn't actually do anything."
There seems to be a bit of a gap in the market when it comes to this price range. There are bikes for around the €200 to €300 mark that simply won't stand up to the rigours of mountain biking, and then there is a jump up towards €800. However, Chain Reaction Cycles (www.chainreactioncycles.com) has a few models that seem to fit the bill, including its BeOne Aspire range and its Cube and Saracen models.
So get the gear, download the map and get your mudface on, there's a whole network of trails waiting fo you to hurtle down them - and just try letting a sniggering foreigner tell you they aren't mountains after they've spent an exhausting hour pedalling up one.