I used to live at the end of a three-mile-long famine road in Kilkenny. When I moved there first I realised that I couldn’t cycle without my hands on the handlebars. It started to bug me and I decided that this was the best place to learn. I cycled to work every day; getting in at eight some mornings and leaving close to 10 other evenings. I kept nudging myself to risk a while longer without hands.

It was a great cycling road. Because it was so long and straight you could see traffic coming all the way off, and with good lights they could see you too. So it felt very safe and big and wide open. In that part of the country the sunrises and sunsets are amazing. My daughter had just been born and I was so sleep deprived. My memory of each morning and evening is somewhere between a fog and a dream. While cycling I imagined a whole host of scenarios and details on the road.

The history of the road really got to me, as well as the legacy of the journey it encompassed. At that time I was working in the old famine workhouse in Callan where we had a community bike shop in one of the sheds. It was a really fun project with a rolling tea break and a hodgepodge of bikes to fix and tinker with for the day. At one stage someone gave us an old cassette deck boombox and a box of old tapes: The Doors, T-Rex, Bon Jovi, and lots of cheesy 80’s tunes. We headbanged and pogo-ed away around the workshop most days; and played with the words of the tracks to take in the names of friends and places we knew.

Cycling the same road every day meant that I got to know the traffic around me like characters in a play. I knew which cars were to be trusted, who would salute, who might slow and chat. I played a lot of cat and mouse with the old boys on the on the Honda 50s, the lumbering agricultural behemoths, and the slow bus drivers. Here is a poem I wrote about the day I overtook the school bus and owned the road all the way into town.

New Line Racer 

As the school bus reversed 
down the middle of the road, 
I flew past on my six speed. 
The air groaned as he hung 
behind me the rest of the 
way up the New Line. I tucked 
in and beat down- not sure 
if he had it in him 
to get ahead again.

Ulick O Beirne