Dan MacCarthy, John Treacy, and Con Collins discuss cycling and Munster's great road routes

Irish Examiner journalist Dan MacCarthy speaks to Irish Olympic medallist and Irish Sports Council chief executive John Treacy, as well as Collins Press publisher Con Collins about his new book, Cycling Munster – Great Road Routes

If you’re a beginner cyclist and are wondering how far you can get you’d be surprised. For the research for my new book Cycling Routes of Munster: Great Road Routes by Collins Press, I was cycling 40km to 50km routes at first, having not cycled for a while. Very soon, I felt my legs getting stronger and my stamina building up. After six months the prospect of cycling the Dingle Peninsula, 126km on the route in the book, did not leave me overawed. If you’re a regular cyclist, then you have a decent level of fitness so none of the routes in the book should be beyond you.

So where to cycle? Connaught has the Inishowen Peninsula and the Giant’s Causeway. Connacht has the Aran Islands and Connemara. Leinster has the Wicklow Mountains and the Barrow Way. That leaves Munster.

Sheep’s Head; The Iveragh Peninsula; The Dingle Peninsula; Carbery’s Hundred Isles; The Glen of Aherlow; The Ballyhoura Mountains; The Copper Coast of Waterford; The Shannon Estuary, the Burren. Ditch this list and it can easily be replaced with a bunch of places just as spectacular. Okay, all the other provinces have much more than the selected highlights but Munster has seemingly been blessed by the gods.

Cycling Munster – Great Road Routes by Dan MacCarthy is published by The Collins Press, price €14.99. It is available in all good bookshops and online from www.collinspress.ie