With my increasing mileage I’ve been getting a real taste for long distance cycling again. 200km Audax still seems like a big stretch in terms of fitness but I came across the RRTY 100 Challenge recently that was introduced by Audax Ireland this year.

A standard RRTY (Randonneur Round The Year) involves completing a 200km Audax Ireland approved route each month for 12 months in a row. This year they have started adding 100km routes as a taster and introduction to Audax. In tandem they have created the RRTY 100 for the shorter distance ie ride a 100km Audax Ireland approved route 12 months in a row.

Checking out the Audax Ireland site it quickly became clear that the closest route was in Sligo! A discussion on the Audax WhatsApp group turned up a more local 106km route that is in the planning stages but it has a mental 1600m of climbing and I’m not sure I’m ready for that!

It was clear I was going to have to come up with at least one route of my own. I have a few 100km+ routes I’ve done in the past but one in particular that I’ve been thinking about for a while.

It was originally developed by one of the guys in the Club as a charity event a few years ago. Our Club is the Finn Wheelers and we live in the Finn Valley area which is named after the river Finn. The Finn is 64km long and rises from Lough Finn, close to Fintown (are you getting the theme yet!). It flows East to Lifford where it joins with the Mourne coming out of Tyrone to form the Foyle which flows to Derry and out to sea at Lough Foyle.

The aim of the route is to cycle the length of the river on both sides crossing only at the two end points. As a play on the well known Lap The Lough event in Northern Ireland we named it Lap The Finn.

As its been 5 years since the original event I arranged to ride the route as an organiser ride recce and get credit from Audax Ireland for having done it even though it hadn’t been published as an official route just yet. I’d no idea what condition the roads would be in and didn’t want to have to change the route post publication.

I was hoping for company but ended up doing it solo on a blustery Sunday, just one week after the DNF at the Club Sportive. It was a cool enough day with blustery showers but I’d learned my lesson from the week before and was kitted out in my winter tights, long finger gloves, rear mudguard and overshoes.

It turned out to be a challenging but enjoyable ride and apart from one section, descending from Lough Muck to Fintown, was pretty good surfaces the whole way. There’s a fantastic variety of scenery with the section above Ballybofey getting up into the edge of the Bluestacks and quite remote.

Photos from the day make it look like I had sunshine the whole time!

“Muc” is Irish for pig and I particularly like this sculpture looking down over “Loch Muc”

It felt really good to get this ride done and it was huge boost to my confidence that had taken a bit of hammering after the previous weekend.

That evening Grainne (one of my clubmates and fairly regular cycling companion) contacted me about the route. She’s completed the Cycle Against Suicide Mizen to Malin ride a couple of weeks ago and thinks the RRTY 100 would be a good challenge to keep her on the bike. I wanted another long spin for the weekend so we arranged to ride it on the Sunday.

So glad we did as it was about as perfect a cycling day as could be hoped for. It was chilly, but not cold, sunny and dry for the whole day and barely a breath of wind. It was already an enjoyable route but it’s always better to have company.

Since then the route has been officially posted on the Audax Ireland website. A bunch of others have also gone live and we’re hoping to ride one of them this weekend…