(Editor’s note: Our intrepid – and now, intermittent – sports reporter Chuck Anschutz is off on another bicycle excursion. Chuck and his cousin, Mark Dodge, left the US in late May for a four-week, two-wheel tour of Ireland. Here is an installment of his report.)

Rain and sporadic headwinds attacked us every day, several times a day, as we bicycled from Ireland’s east coast to the west.

This is not meant as a complaint – nothing simple raingear and a little patience can’t solve – but my cousin Mark and I were hoping for a weather break and clear views by the time we reached the scenic grandeur of the Dingle Peninsula.

Ireland’s television weather forecasters are lousy at predictions – “It’ll probably rain, but might not,” they’d conclude. So we turned to locals for their opinions.

“It’s rained for four weeks straight, so it has to stop sometime,” offered the owner of one pub.

“I’m guessing the rain will stop for the weekend, then pick up again on Tuesday,” said a farmer.

An older couple, touring by car for the week, offered, “My butcher says rain ’til Tuesday, then it will break.”

The Irish have been unbelievably friendly throughout our trip – even the sheep herders we came across on the unmarked, empty narrow roadways that inch along through the southern center of the country. The few (OK, more than few) times we’ve gotten lost, it has been these isolated rural souls who have helped us find our way.

Drivers, too, have shown exceptional generosity to us. Roads are notoriously slim on this island and never have we felt pressed.

Early on, Mark scooped up from the roadside a flag donning the crest of the province of Munster’s Rugby team, attached it to his rear rack and the number of cheers and thumbs up increased dramatically.

The Munster ruggers, only days before we arrived, staged a dramatic victory over a team from France, played in Wales, to win the European Cup, a win many we’ve met have marked as one of Ireland’s great sports victories of the decade.

Cars all along our route have waved these red banners, still celebrating the afterglow of the victory. And we’ve shamelessly latched on to this winning bandwagon.

Back to the weather: Turns out the butcher was right. On Monday, as we pedaled on a tiny sheepherding road out of the city of Tralee, and over the first steep hill of Dingle’s peninsula, we were hit with a few fierce windy showers.

On Tuesday morning the skies opened to a vast expanse of open blue, just in time for us to pedal into the peninsula’s most majestic features.

Dingle is the top claw of three distinguishing peninsulas that jut from Ireland’s southwest coast. The bottom claw – the copper-rich Beara – sounded interesting but was further south than we wanted to go. The Ring of Kerry, the middle rung, is the largest and most popular of the three, but we feared the endless line of bus traffic that is legendary on this famous looped highway.

So we opted for Dingle. And we feel we struck gold.

Not only does Dingle offer a reasonably bikeable area, but it is also rich in history – “more archaeological points of interest per square mile than any other place on earth,” according to writer Chet Raymo, who made his home here more than 25 years ago.

His list numbers more than 1,500 such spots, spanning from the Iron Age to the last century, and as Mark and I pedaled along the southern edge of Dingle’s tip, we began clicking them off: the foundation for a 2,500-year-old promontory fort (Dun Beag), mysterious ancient stone beehive huts dotting a sheep-filled hillside, a seaside battlefield where Spanish and Italian invaders were slaughtered in 1580 by the English and the 7th century Gallarus Oratory, the oldest intact building in Ireland, just to name a few.

But history is mute to a cyclist if the geography and present-day culture aren’t interesting, too. And here also, Dingle doesn’t disappoint.

The outer half of Dingle is one of of the few pockets of Gaelic-speaking regions left in Ireland and the towns here are rich with ages-old folk music (played late into the night in classic pubs).

The winding road that circles the end of the peninsula hugs picturesque cliffs that offer views out to impressive jagged islands just offshore (where an array of famous writers found refuge) and views down to pleasant easy beaches.

“Potentially a pretty good surf spot, too,” said my cousin, his eyes widening as he watched the water lap tactfully into Com Dhineal, a curve of sand near the most-westerly point. Mark rides waves regularly near his home in San Diego and he’s always on the lookout whenever an ocean is near.

“That curve, the rocky point and the sand spits cause the waves to peel perfectly,” he said.

Mark’s insight was confirmed by the proprietor of a surf shop in the town of Dingle. Ireland does indeed have decent surfing, we decided.

We spent two nights at hostels in that bustling compact village, which is known for its tasteful blend of fishing and tourism and sits on the edge of a tiny harbor that is carved in behind the mountains.

We rose early after our second night in Dingle town and made our way up this trip’s biggest climb so far, a steady uphill to Conner Pass, which cuts a crease beside the peninsula’s highest point (Mount Brandon at 950 meters) then quickly drops down to the north shore.

We are not used to the clear blue sky, and we are not counting on it to last, but many say – professional forecasters and locals alike – that good weather could linger for a week.

We’ll take advantage and try to put in some long days, heading due north up Ireland’s east side.

And, even as the strong headwinds suddenly shift from the west to the north – they seem to have it out for us – we’ll keep our fingers crossed, and our rain gear at the ready.

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