Because I spend so many of my days working from home, I rarely get enough exercise as part of my daily routine. Whenever I’ve commuted in the past, I’ve almost always done it by bike, clocking up nearly ten miles a day. But, if I’m at home, I’ll usually go for a run in the evening, leaving the bike for the odd essential journey here or there.
Today, though, I got on the bike at lunchtime and made a beeline for the Phoenix Park, which is only a ten minute bike journey from my house, via the boneshaking cobbles around the back of the Guinness factory, down the Luas tracks on Steeven’s Lane, and past the front of Heuston Station.
Initially the park is not too much of a shock to the system of a cyclist who’s spent the previous minutes dodging speeding trucks and spatially aggressive taxicabs: the main road off Parkgate Street (Chesterfield Avenue) is little but a large main road connecting the city with the suburb of Castleknock, to the park’s north-west. Manoeuvres to avoid pedestrians on city streets are replicated as you zoom around the lolling pedestrians who seem to have appropriated the cycle path that runs the length of Chesterfield Avenue. (The grass verge is wide and flat enough to accommodate overtaking.)
It’s when you get deep into the park, near the US ambassador’s residence, that it starts to come into its own as a playground for cycling. Taking a left from the cycling path just before the Phoenix roundabout, you come to a clump of tall pine trees with a small road beneath them. This is the top of the Kyber Hill, and it’s the beginning of a freewheeler’s paradise.
Freewheeling down the hill is one choice obviously, but I prefer to clank up to my highest gear and career down the sharp incline at the fastest speed possible. As you speed past pedestrians, they appear in your peripheral vision as the faintest of blurs, and you concentrate instead on the landscape that unfolds around you. It’s the adult cyclists’ equivalent of a playground slide: once you’ve got to the bottom, your first instinct is to go back and do it all again.
But first you have to contend with the numerous potholes in the car park at the base of the hill. The answer is to slow to a crawl as you reach the end of the path, then to thread your way amongst the worst of the potholes, then to cycle towards the junction with the Military Road and Wellington Road.
The Military Road is no longer open to through traffic, and the two dramatic curves halfway along its length lend themselves to speedy fantasies about bike racing. After climbing the sharp incline at the Magazine Fort end of the road, I spent much of this section of the ride imagining myself a particularly awesome participant of the Tour de France. Other possible cycling fantasies include: pretending to be a fast and highly manoeuvrable fighter jet, or pretending to be a sleek and speedy car (such as, um, Kit from Knight Rider).
I stuck with the Tour de France idea. Sad but true. There’s also a great view of the south bank of the Liffey and its War Memorial from the road, and it’s worth stopping at the bench for a sit down. But onwards!
Once I reached the end of Military Road, I took a right up the steep hill towards Acres Road (up which a woman in a wheelchair was being pushed, towards St. Mary’s Hospital), then along the road to near the Papal Cross. At this point, I was at the top of the Kyber Hill again, and couldn’t resist the urge to belt down it again in the quest for yet more kicks.
Once you hit the bottom of the Hill, the Islandbridge Gate’s straight ahead of you. I dodged the convoy of cars coming from Dublin Zoo and headed out, turning left down Conyngham Road and retracing my route back to the house. The whole cycle took less than 50 minutes.
