After this clip ends, I turned north and climbed higher into the hills, thinking there might be a back road to Kilnamartyra. There wasn’t. The tarmac gave way to broken track, and I lost all phone signal. I pushed on for a while, unsure where I was headed, until I ran into two young lads - couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen - stranded in the middle of nowhere with a beat-up old scrambler, barely held together by string. They flagged me down for help.
The older one had hurt his knee. They’d been trying to kick-start the bike for ages, wedging it up against a little stone bridge to keep it upright. It was far too tall for either of them. They must have been amazed, and relieved, to see a fully grown adult roll up, out of the blue, on a motorcycle. Unfortunately for them, I’ve got short legs, stiff hips, and the agility of a sack of spuds. After a few awkward attempts to mount the thing myself, I also ended up having to wedge it back against the bridge and asking one of them to hold the clutch while I gave it a kickstart. Eventually it coughed back to life in a cloud of black smoke thick enough to fumigate a cow shed. “Are you sure that’s safe?” I asked. “Ah sure, just needs a bit of an oil change,” came the reply.
I headed back towards bigger roads. My evening ride had been a nice break after a busy day. But I couldn’t help envying those boys, spending their summer up in the Shehy mountains, messing with dirt bikes, exploring the hills, a bit of fishing. No schedules, no signal, just complete freedom.