Best time to cycle Ireland
May to September. June and September are the sweet spots: the light is long, the lanes are dry more often than not, and the coast road is far quieter either side of high summer.
Month by month
- November – MarchHard
- Short days, Atlantic storms and persistent wind and rain.
- April – MayVery good
- Driest stretch of the Irish year, hedgerows in flower, roads empty.
- June – AugustGood
- Warmest and longest days; the main coast road carries holiday traffic.
- September – OctoberVery good
- Soft light, mild air, quiet lanes; more rain arrives late in October.
Daylight
Nearly seventeen hours at midsummer and still thirteen in September — enough to ride a short day slowly.
Wind
The prevailing southwesterly is the real gradient here. Riding south to north puts it behind you more often than not.
Roads and surfaces
Narrow sealed lanes, often wet, with loose grit on the descents after rain.
Multi-day routes in Ireland
- The Atlantic Lanes — 412 km, 7 days
Hedgerow lanes and a sea that is never quite the same colour twice.
The full route
GPX files, offline maps, the elevation profile, day-by-day notes and the planning tools for The Atlantic Lanes all live on BicycleMovement. We keep only the season and the reason.
View full route on BicycleMovementOpens the official page in a new tab. No signup here, nothing sold here.
Quiet routes in EuropeHow we read the seasonThis month's ten