Delphi resort - MTB or cross bike?

mayan

Heading to Delphi resort in Connemara for a few days with the family. I was thinking I would take a bike and if the opportunity presents itself, head out for a short spin.
I wont be able to get out for long, a quick blast around the resort maybe an hour or two. I have a choice of an MTB, or a cross bike.
Looking on strava and strava heat map, there seems to be a few short MTB trails starting from the resort itself, but not a huge amount.
Or, I could take the cross bike and do some exploring mixing up road / fireroad etc.

Any feedback on the MTB trails there? similar to any of the coilte trails, or more fireroad?
Is there scope to do some short gravel type exploring rides from there?

any feed back appreciated!

Budawanny

The resort has its own mountain bike trail. its about 5km long i think. looks to be pretty basic entry level single track.
i haven't ridden it myself yet but it might pass an hour if your stuck on time .
so the mtb could do nicely.

thekooman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGDgBGnWoyI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8XGH198wYc

brownian

I'd take a cross bike. The road up N from Delphi (Doo Loough) and the Sheefry pass road (E from Doo Lough) are both beautiful.

Fian

brownian wrote: »

I'd take a cross bike. The road up N from Delphi (Doo Loough) and the Sheefry pass road (E from Doo Lough) are both beautiful.

I'm planning to cycle this road, on to westport, in late April. Even just from google maps it looks fantastic.

I was planning to circle ford in lenaune, then north to louisburgh and along the coast to westport. Would be interested to hear if you would recommend a different route Brownian.

Following day we intend to do the Greenway and back to stay in westport again that second night.

Fian

Budawanny wrote: »

The resort has its own mountain bike trail. its about 5km long i think. looks to be pretty basic entry level single track.
i haven't ridden it myself yet but it might pass an hour if your stuck on time .
so the mtb could do nicely.

Lol @ username.

Tom Sally from Ros a Mhil, who featured in the film, is a good friend of our family.

I am assuming you know what it means?

plodder

You could do this 27km loop either

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=7217029

The start/finish is the wrong place, so the km markers are out of sync. The one part of it I haven't done is the trail section through Tawnyard forest, which is part of the Western Way and not ideal on a road bike, but would be fun on a mtb/cross bike, but I'd double check that it's do-able on a bike. It looks like there is forest road right thru there though.

Budawanny

Fian wrote: »

Lol @ username.

Tom Sally from Ros a Mhil, who featured in the film, is a good friend of our family.

I am assuming you know what it means?

I do indeed know what it means :-D Your the first person who has spotted it!

Budawanny

Fian wrote: »

I'm planning to cycle this road, on to westport, in late April. Even just from google maps it looks fantastic.

I was planning to circle ford in lenaune, then north to louisburgh and along the coast to westport. Would be interested to hear if you would recommend a different route Brownian.

Following day we intend to do the Greenway and back to stay in westport again that second night.

That’s a nice loop certainly. You can vary it a bit to include sheefrey pass which is pretty spectacular too, from the south side.

Borderfox

Looking south towards Delphi from Doo Lough

plodder

Fian wrote: »

I'm planning to cycle this road, on to westport, in late April. Even just from google maps it looks fantastic.

I was planning to circle ford in lenaune, then north to louisburgh and along the coast to westport. Would be interested to hear if you would recommend a different route Brownian.

That's a lovely loop all right. There can be a bit of traffic on the Louisburgh to Westport section, nothing too serious, but I'd suggest taking the road that runs parallel to it from Louisburgh to Killsallagh (turn right in the centre of Louisburgh instead of going straight through). Also, going in that direction there is a cycle path that starts in Murrisk all the way to Westport.

'68 Fastback

Heading to Louisburgh tomorrow for the weekend but not with a bike. Even so, can't wait.

Also, just choked on my sausage roll after looking up Budawanny!

RobFowl

'68 wrote:

Heading to Louisburgh tomorrow for the weekend but not with a bike. Even so, can't wait.

Also, just choked on my sausage roll after looking up Budawanny!

Was near there last year on holidays, just a beautiful part of the world on every level...

muckwarrior

I wouldn't bother with the MTB track there tbh. Did it a couple of years ago and it's not particualrly fun and also not very well built. Lots of coarse loose gravel on top of a plastic liner, which was coming through in many places.

Budawanny

'68 wrote:

Heading to Louisburgh tomorrow for the weekend but not with a bike. Even so, can't wait.

Also, just choked on my sausage roll after looking up Budawanny!

haha

mayan

thanks for all the feedback.
Sounds like the cross bike is the way to go.

brownian

Fian wrote: »

I'm planning to cycle this road, on to westport, in late April. Even just from google maps it looks fantastic.

I was planning to circle ford in lenaune, then north to louisburgh and along the coast to westport. Would be interested to hear if you would recommend a different route Brownian.

Following day we intend to do the Greenway and back to stay in westport again that second night.

@Fian: The Doolough pass is the highlight. Two lovely additional options are (a) turn R at Doolough and go over Sheefry Pass and around back of Croagh Patrick to Lousburgh, or (b) do full lengh of Doolough road, then turn left for Killeen and cycle to the end of the road at Silver Strand (between Mweelrea and the sea) ...brilliant on a nice day. Retrace your steps to Killeen and follow straight on (less wow, but you already got value) to Louisburgh.

Am envious of anyone who rides this for the first time.