Powerscourt Waterfall ride

TLDR – Maddex and I went for a Sunday bike ride to Powerscourt waterfall. It’s about 16 kilometers one way.

Ridding to Powerscourt

Todays Adventure is a Dad and Maddex bike ride to PowersCourt waterfall. The tallest waterfall in all of Ireland. Before leaving I packed us a snack, and charged our helmets. Maddex charged the battery on his bike and reported my bike had plenty of power. This is our first long ride and the first ride with our new bike to bike radios, a pair of Ejeas e6 helmet mounted radios. We had to buy full face mountain bike helmets to mount all of the comms hardware in; oh well helmets look good. Mounted the Mic on the chin guard, Velcro speakers in the ear voids, and radio clipped onto the helmet. The setup is much more comfortable then the autocom setup Michelle and I had in our helmets when we had our BWM 1150 RT BBK(Back Before Kids)

Being able to talk to each other is grand. We chatted most of the way there and back. Might be the most Maddex and I have talked all week. Gone were the answers of “good” replaced with actual words! On the double plus side, the always-on mic forced him to listen to me signing a few signings. “Keep your self alive. Keep your self alive. It’ll take you all your time and your money. But honey, you’ll survive ” he claimed my singing sounded like screaming; what a jerk.  Before leaving this morning Maddex planned our route on the computer.

Maddex’s route had us riding to Powerscourt garden to explore the garden a bit before heading onwards to the waterfall. On the map it looked like we could ride through the Powerscourt area directly to the waterfall. In reality you can take that route only if you are a member and have the code. We are not members, and Maddex figured we could not jump the gate with our bikes. We turned around and rode out of the gardens area back onto the road and took the long way around. Before we hit the road on the long way around we stopped at a stump to warm up and snack.

Made it to the falls

Of course, Maddex had to climb a tree while we were stopped for a snack. It’s another 7k on a narrow lane and a half two-way round with no sidewalks to the waterfall. It’s not that bad slowing cars down waiting to pass us. Because they have to slow down and pull over when a car is coming the other direction – they have to slow for bikes AND cars. We paid 9.50€ to enter the park and rode directly to the parking lot / play area / food / bathroom place. Maddex went straight away to the spinning thing in the playground and forced me to spin him. It’s a right big playground here with a big slide, climbing thing, water screw in the sand and various other bits and bobs.

After a piss and some play time we re mounted our bikes and rode about 2 minutes to the waterfall. The base of the waterfall is a great parkour rock zone we spent some time climbing. At one point Maddex crawled under a huge stone and explored the side facing the water. The waterfall does not have a consistently smooth flow. The water pulses and surges making a great visual show and some pleasing sounds. I took some breaks to take in the falls and capture Maddex in pictures. Maddex spent all of his time jumping on the rocks. Not even sure he noticed the water other than seeing it as something to jump over.

Back at food play zone we chained the bikes up to a picnic bench and sat for a minute. When we arrived at the food place before hitting the falls I noticed a mountain biker with a steaming bag of chips and took note. While I was locking up the bikes I gave Maddex a ten spot and asked him to buy us some chips. He was excited to give it a go and came back a bit later with change and no chips. He went back to wait for the chips. A bit later he came back with a coke and no chips. He says “something broke and they had to make more chips. It’s going to be a while.”

Guess we have a wait before we are going to get our steaming bag of chips. We packed up our loose kit and went for a play in the park. Turned out they ran out of gas and had to switch bottles. No bother for us there are loads of things to play on for Maddex, filming to do and words to write for me. Eventually, our chips were done and we sat to eat. While eating the sun came out for a few minutes. Doubles the temperature sun vs no sun; feels nice.

Ridding home

My bike has 2 bars of battery left and we have a number of long steep hills on the way home.  Two of them Maddex and I hit 40kph coasting downhill a few times. Not 100% sure if the battery will last the whole trip home. Maddex’s bike is only down one bar of battery. I had the bright idea to swap batteries until Maddex told me he left his battery keys back home; DOH! While we were eating Maddex asked if we could go the waterfall one more time on the way home – sure let’s have some more adventure.

Before riding home we stopped a the waterfall and Maddex jumped all over the rocks again. He also crawled under a few of them again. Eventually, it was time to leave and we set off home. I set my bike in Eco mode to conserve battery. After the two huger hills, I was down to one bar of power remaining. At this point, I changed from conservation to Burn all of the power and switched to max assist. I wanted to see what happens when the battery goes dead. Giving it all she’s got captain for the rest of the way home.  – Made it home with one bar left over, and an exhausted Maddex.

About 10 minutes from home Maddex stopped talking or responding. He’d mentioned being worn out; guess he was not kidding. After getting home he went on the couch and almost passed out. Before passing out he changed his mind and went up to his room, crawled into his hammock and slept for an hour. While he was sleeping I took all of the video clips from the trip and edited them down to a ~4-minute video that’s been added to the plex. – Great adventure.

Impressed how well Maddex did. All in we rode about 40 kilometers over the course of 5 hours with a bunch of parkour, tree climbing and playground mixed in.

Bonus pictures