The Sperrins
Is anything better than getting a corner just right? No frantic braking, speed steady going in. Weight evenly spread over front and rear wheels, bike placed for optimum visibility. With eyes glued to the vanishing point, you ease open the throttle as the road straightens. Perfect.
That’s the dream, rarely realised, often fluffed. But practice makes perfect and is fun.
These trips in the Sperrins include corners that you will take too slowly - because you have to be extra careful first time through. There are many others where you can see through the corner and suss out tightness, surface and traffic and take them with confidence. The views are wild and largely empty - spaces where imagination can take you back generations. Pillions can enjoy the scenery and riders the road.
Coleraine - Limavady-Magilligan-Coleraine (red on map)
This circuit starts with a fast open mountain road with few corners before it descends into Limavady. 17 miles out, at a roundabout take the A2 towards Magilligan and Bellarena. A favourite of local bikers this is a flat, curvaceous road with good visibility becoming a twisty tighter road along the sea and under Benevenagh Mountain to Downhill. Think about digressing to the right up the Bishops’s Road to the Eagle Viewpoint – you’ll not regret the view or the road there and back. Back down in Downhill continue to Castlerock and Coleraine. Odds are you’ll want to do this again(30 miles).
North Sperrins (55 miles) - Coleraine-Downhill-Limavady-Ringsend-Dungiven-Limavady-L’Derry (blue on map)
Allow a couple of hours for this scenic marvel that snakes its way through the Sperrins. These are roads used by local bikers because there are corners to savour and views to stare at all on quiet roads. Highlights include the Bishops Road from Downhill to Limavady, Ringsend to Dungiven, the Loughermore road over to Ballykelly and the 17th century walls of L’Derry.
Start out on the A2 towards Castlerock and wow at the view as you crest the hill before dropping into Downhill. Take a left up Bishops Road and ride the hairpins up Eagle Mountain. Watch out for marked viewpoint. Take a right at the T-junction and watch out for a left on to the A37. Branch right on the B86 to Ringsend, then right on the B70 and soon right again on to the B190. Join the A6 at Dungiven, direction L’Derry, and B69 to BallyKelly
South Sperrins (65 miles) - L’Derry-Newbuildings-Donemana-Claudy-Feeney-Draperstown-Plumbridge-Gortin-Omagh (green on map)
Cross the river Foyle and turn right on to the A5 and go 3 miles to Newbuildings where you take a left at traffic lights towards Donemana.
Go easy on the throttle as you leave the speed limit zone – there are testing corners ahead as the road rises into the Sperrins. And visibility is poor on some. You won’t need top gear before you reach a T junction by the police station in Donemana where you turn left. Be careful here. It’s a sharp left combined with a hill start. The road opens up now to Claudy. Enjoy the curves, dips and rises and generally good road surface. Just before Claudy there is a long dropping but vicious right hander before you head for the centre of the village where you turn right for Feeney.
After a fast open road , turn right in the village`on to the B40, across a crossroads and up past Banagher Forest. You’ll soon have a wide, open view of the road ahead and a naked landscape that drops down into Draperstown – so named by the London Guild of Drapers who were given these lands by Elizabeth I in the Plantation of Ulster. You might want to stop and browse here before heading west on the B47 along the Glenelly valley to Plumbridge – 20 miles of lush, picturesque valley where gold was discovered in recent years. You can try your hand at panning for gold in the interpretive centre you pass on the way.
The map shows a road from Draperstown to Lough Fea – well worth an out and back detour if you have the time.
The route of choice from Plumbridge is the B47 to Gortin and on to Omagh – the sequence of curves past the Gortin Forest Park will test any rider and leave many feeling smug and self satisfied. The rest of us just have to resolve to practise more!.
