Determined not to waste the good weather I decided to head out on the mountain bike this afternoon. Almost put off by a flat rear tyre when I went to check on the bike but had it changed within 10mins and didn’t let it stop me.

Headed down the road and across into Monellan woods. It’s our local Coillte planted forest and although it doesn’t cover a big area it has a good mix of forest tracks and off trail paths* that give a feel of more difficult and challenging biking. There’s a decent amount of rough areas with humps and hollows, roots and rocks and some small piles of logs** for hopping over.

*the paths are a mixture of tracks created by locals walking and horse riding in through the trees over the years.

**I think these are small jumps for people training horses.

I spent about half an hour in here before heading back to the road and climbing up Gleneely. This hill hits 12% on one section and 10% on three others so it’s a sure way to get the heart rate up!

The point of the hill was to get up to Corradooey, a small wood I only discovered a couple of weeks ago. It’s only a 2km loop but more than worth it with one section pretty much completely overgrown. It’s dry now but will be a real challenge in the wet Winter. This wood seems quiet and mostly un-used by locals. I saw a rare red squirrel here last time and a deer today.

Final bit was a fast downhill most of the way home.

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