Kenmare sits at the head of a long sea inlet, with mountains on both sides and the Kerry hills rolling away to the north, and it is one of the best-placed small towns in Ireland. It was laid out as a planned town in the late eighteenth century by the Lansdowne estate, and the streets still form a tidy shape around a central market place, with colourful shopfronts, craft shops and some of the best restaurants in the south-west. Because it stands where the Ring of Kerry meets the Beara Peninsula, it is a natural starting point for either.
Fuel and food are easy here. With just over two thousand people, Kenmare has several petrol stations, banks, supermarkets and plenty of cafes, and in summer the streets are full of visitors. If you are heading out around the Ring of Kerry, remember that coaches are asked to go anticlockwise, so if you ride the same way you will often be stuck behind them, while riding clockwise tends to be quieter. The N71 east to Killarney crosses Moll's Gap, one of the most dramatic stretches in the south-west, with views over the Kerry mountains and the lakes.
On the edge of town, beside the road, lies a stone circle that is one of the largest in south-west Ireland, fifteen standing stones laid out around a big boulder in the middle. Nobody knows exactly why it was built, but it is thought to be about three thousand years old, and standing inside it with a bike ticking quietly behind you is worth a few minutes. Kenmare also has a long tradition of lacemaking, introduced by nuns in the nineteenth century, and the town's history includes the dark years of the Famine, when the workhouse was crowded.
Out of town, the Beara road west, along the south side of the bay, is quiet, twisting and beautiful, with the water on one side and the hills on the other. The Healy Pass, which climbs steeply between Kerry and Cork in tight hairpins, is a few kilometres further on and is one of the great rides in Ireland. Weather rolls in off the Atlantic, so be prepared for rain, but when the sun comes out the water in the bay turns a deep blue and the hills glow green. Late spring and September are the quietest and most reliable months.