Blind Dundalk cyclist and his pal complete tandem fundraiser
Cyclist collective ‘Mark And Jays Tandem Adventures’ raised €690 for Réalt na Mara National School with a 60km Lakelands to Boyne Valley Greenway and return sponsored cycle.
Dundalk cyclist collective ‘Mark And Jays Tandem Adventures’ raised €690 for Réalt na Mara National School.
‘Mark And Jays Tandem Adventures’ was launched by two friends, James O'Hanlon pilots a tandem for Mark Fitzimons who is blind.
They presented the raised funds to the school on Monday.
Mark and Jay’s cycling collective started earlier this year as they began cycling together nearly every day.
Mark said: “We set up a Facebook page called Mark and Jay's Tandem Adventures and then we bumped into the lads from the Louth Disability Cycling Club . We were asked to visit the Louth Disability Cycling Club and have a look.
“We went up and we were very impressed by it. It is absolutely amazing what the volunteers do with the kids and people with disabilities on Wednesday nights.
“We just decided, every Wednesday then, we just made it a thing that we'd go there. We got a lot of enjoyment out of it and then we'd go off cycling ourselves separately to that.
“A lot of time we don't even cycle in the park, we just go up and we kind of participate in the craic and chat to people and sometimes we cycle in the park.”
After this Jay and Mark decided to start cycling on greenways.
Mark said: “We just decided that we had to do something to give something back. It was amazing what the lads at the Louth Disability Cycling Club were doing and we wanted to do something similar.
“We set up a fundraiser for them, 60km on the Boyne Valley. Other people came and got involved through the channel.
“Almost anybody who cycles with us has had no prior training. They basically come along and train on the tandem. So we ended up doing loads of greenways and then we ended up with three visually impaired people and three tandems doing the cycle from Kingscourt to Navan, the Boyne Valley to Lakelands Greenway .
“We did a bit of training on the Carlingford Greenway, then basically when we did the cycle, the lads said that they were after getting the donation from Variety, the children’s charity for around €60,000 for bikes and equipment.
“We said that we’d do a fundraiser for them to service these new bikes.
“The lads from the Disability Cycling Club decided that they'd like to give the money towards a bike for Réalt na Mara and we thought that was a lovely idea.
“They went to the school and then the school said they didn't want to get a bike, but they wanted to do a fundraiser for swings and one of the GAA clubs was after making a significant donation towards it. So they said they'd put it towards that.”
Seán O’Mahony’s GFC has independently made a very generous donation towards these efforts.
“It's a specialised swing and is adapted for people with special needs and that. So I think that that's what they're trying to buy. So that's where the funding is going to go.
“When the lads told us from the Louth Disability Cycling Club, we had to ask our followers beforehand. We agreed with it, but we had to run it by all our followers or the people that donated first. When we did that, everybody thought it was a brilliant idea, so that's kind of how then it ended up going there.
“We were delighted with that. Once it was going towards a similar thing. The lads in the Louth Disability Cycling Club went into the school anyway to do cycling with the kids.”