Ventry is where the Slea Head loop really begins, a long curve of beach at the bottom of the Dingle Peninsula with the mountain Mount Eagle standing over its western end. The Irish name, Ceann Trá, means the head of the strand, and the beach is exactly that: a clean, wide sweep of sand, popular with families and swimmers in summer and often completely empty in the shoulder months. Dingle is only about seven kilometres east, which makes this the easy first stop of a circuit that gets wilder with every mile.
There is a legend attached to the bay that every local will be happy to tell you. In the old stories of the Fianna, the great Daire Donn landed a huge invading force at Ventry, and the Fianna defended the strand for a year and a day in what is remembered as the Battle of Ventry. Whether or not you believe in a year-long battle, the place feels like it was made for such a story, flat and open and watched from above by the hills.
On the bike the road is the R559, and the character is typical west Kerry: narrow, walled, and busy enough in July that you will spend part of the day tucked in behind a hire car or a tour bus. Most traffic runs the loop anticlockwise to keep the coaches from meeting each other on the tight sections, so riding clockwise is likely to put you face to face with them. Early morning, before ten, is when the whole thing feels like a proper road rather than a queue. The bends are gentle and the surface is generally fine, with the odd bump where the Atlantic weather has been at it.
Ventry is part of the Gaeltacht, the Irish-speaking region, and you will hear the language in shops and on the road signs, which are often only in Irish. Greet people and you will be rewarded. Dingle has the fuel, the shops and the harbour restaurants, so top up there before heading round, because the stretch beyond Ventry has very little. A cafe or two near the beach does the job for coffee, and in summer there are usually food vans.
If the light is clear you can see the Blasket Islands ahead as you leave, grey shapes on the water that you will soon be much closer to.