Derroura

I was over in Galway (Oughterard) visiting friends for the weekend so I brought the bike with me as you do. It was late Friday afternoon when we reached our friends house. I said hello to our friends and then good bye to all including the wife and kids all in the same sentence and headed out to find the Derroura MTB trail for a spin. Found the car park about 10mins out of Oughterard nearly missed it as I was expecting to see some sign of life but it was completely empty. Had this been anywhere in Wicklow/Dublin it would have been full of cars bikes at 6 on a cracking Friday evening. Got the bike setup and headed off into the unknown expecting a mix of Ballingoober / Djouce. First section was fire road then a small bit of single track and then fire road up to the antenna. From here it's long easy single track all the way to the top. Still no one to be seen on the trail. From the top there are some great views of Lough Corrib. The spin back down is a straightforward rocky trail broken up by boardwalks and some more boardwalks. They always manage to freak me out epically these ones as they were very over grown and it was hard to make out how much of a drop there was at the sides. The spin took me about an hour and 20 including stops for photos. I was disappointed not to meet some locals on the trail, and The back section is over grown but I was more disappointed not to meet anyone on the trail. I still enjoyed my spin and when I'm back in Oughterard I will go out again. It really makes me appreciate what is available in Wicklow.
;D

fair play Dave..somebody should run an NPS on that just for the craic next year..

Was out there this morning, grand soft morning as we say down here. Not a bad spot at all, as you say Dave, fireroad and single track to the top. The middle section is very rocky and quite hard on the hands after a bit. The final section is nice, hasn't seen too many wheels so not what you'd call flowy, but good and fast all the same. I couldn't get over how quiet it was though, only a couple of walkers coming back when I made it back to the car and there were 3 guys who had travelled from Tuam which is a good hour and a half spin, but even they hadn't been there before.

People from Tuam are called Tumours

How do you get to it from Oughterard town, say from the garage at the top of the pier road?

I go to Ouchterard the odd time and wouldn't mind a spin on the bike up there.

Nice part of the country.

Go straight through Oughterard and keep going till you come to the entrance to Glengowla Mines on your left, it's 6.5km after that on your right hand side, there's a lake on the left that you'll see before you come to it.

Would these mines contain.........Gowlers?

Ma-ma-ma Gowler face, ma-ma Gowler face

:D

Any of the times ive been out on it there is never anyone there, i miss the turn off every time i go out there always end up doing a u turn.

It is quite rocky on after passing the antenna but the down hill isnt too bad.