Biking the Dingle loop

We just came back from 2 weeks in Ireland and I love to bike - however the bicycles in Ireland made us CRAZY. They do share the roads - and the roads are very narrow and very curvy with no bike lanes as we know them in the U.S. Bikes were holding up long lines of traffic - sometimes 10-12 cars because there is no way around them and no place for the bikes to pull over either and if it was going uphill - they were working hard and slow to get up the hills. I know Rick mentions Dingle and bikes, but it would not be my recommendation. I thought it was a very dangerous way to see the peninsula.

What Nancy said, in spades.

We drove the Dingle tour (Rick Steve suggested in his book)in May and it was a fantastic driving tour, but the people on bikes really looked miserable. No shoulder for bikes and lots of cars passing them. With most tourist not use to driving on the other side it looked pretty scary for me. I think you could ride around the small towns on a bike, but I am not sure I would want to do that loop on bike.

Thank you so much, everyone! RS travelers are the best!

My husband and I have biked many places in Europe. We decided not to bike on Dingle, and once we got there and saw how it was we were glad for that decision. Perhaps the local drivers are used to sharing the road with bikes, as the previous poster mentioned, but I guess many people driving there are not locals. We saw more than a few dangerous situations and close calls. And when a big bus goes by, there just is no place for the bikes to go. We love to bike, but it is my opinion that Dingle is a poor place for it.

Well, time for another point of view. My brother and I rode the Dingle loop on bikes and we had a great time. I will mention that we are experienced cyclist so we are use to sharing the road with cars. I felt safe on the roads and since many Irish use a bike as transportation, the locals in cars are use to sharing the roads. I would highly recommend doing the loop on 2 wheels.

Happy Travels.

I'm glad we had already biked the Dingle Peninsula before reading the site. We biked it and loved it. I might of been scared off by the above posts.We did it in September.

September would probably be a reasonable time to do it since there are not as many tourists then. I drove the loop last September and don't really remember seeing any bikes (and don't recall any big bumps in the road... ;-)). If you are a very experienced cyclist and can handle hills well, go for it. If you aren't and can't, perhaps by car would be your better choice.

Be prepared road is rough and very curvy, weather can turn bad very quickly. Just have an alternate in case weather is bad. When we were there the storm and winds were fierce.

I agree with Nancy and Ed. The roads are narrow, there's a six inch shoulder and I may be driving!