A
GUIDE TO OPERATION TRANSPORTATION 2014:
This year’s “Operation Transportation”
leaders included:
b
Psychiatric Nurse: Siobhán
Ní Mhurchú ( click on the name to read all her posts!) originally from Millstreet, now living near Blarney.
b
Cork City Cycling Couples:
b
Two Ballincollig Based Friends, who had
not cycled since their pre-teen years:
1.
She introduced herself with the words:
“After not being on
the bike much over the past two years, I've decided to take part in the
operation transportation, an excellent way to ease back into cycling, and
hopefully develop a love for that feeling of hopping on the bike, taking in the
scenery and getting fresh air into the lungs..”
By the end
of the challenge she had agreed to attempt the Ring of
Kerry Cycle- all 180kms of it two weeks later (July5th)!
2. Michelle and Anthony live on the Southern Road in
Douglas and their “Operation Transportation” diary posts touched on a lot of
hot topics for cyclists like bicycle theft, cars parking in cycle lanes and angry
beeps from motorists.
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These posts sparked off some interesting research and
were some of the most popular on blogger and Facebook.
3. Margaret and John decided to undertake “Operation Transportation” in order to raise funds for Pieta House . The couple live near a Pieta House
centre and even visited the facility during “Operation Transportation” to see
how any funds raised help to provide life saving services to people who
are feeling suicidal or who are engaged in self-harm.
So Margaret and John, who only recently got around to
buying bikes after several bike-free years, really made an all out effort to
cycle as much as possible, during the ten day cycle challenge. Most days
they managed one long and two shorter cycles. Some days they went on two long
cycles or one of them squeezed in 5 or 6 cycles. For the ten days of the
challenge they seem to have done little else outside of work but cycle!
In the process, they discovered nearby amenities
hitherto unknown to them and Margaret combined her re-discovered love of
cycling, with her passion for good food. So readers were taken on
mouth-watering cycle tours of Cork’s finest eateries, small food shops and
market delights.
4.
Andrea Minnie and Maria
Kalaitzake are
friends and neighbours from Ballincollig, who thought that they had forgotten
how to cycle. So we rented two bikes for them to use during the challenge and
enrolled them on the cycle safety skills course. They lapped it all up and
surely aroused the curiosity of their neighbours with all their practice runs
up and down the road. Their children were greatly impressed by the whole
enterprise.
One day she surprised her son at
school “by collecting him, with the bikes in the
back of the car. He was so excited to go for an after-school bike ride."
All the
way he was saying: “Wow, Mommy you’re getting so good at it!””
Andrea
also found that cycling opened up “a new world of
social opportunities.”
While at a friend’s garden party she “was suddenly invited to come on bike rides all over Cork.”
Maria on the other hand was busy
re-discovering her inner child. She took up the “Operation Transportation” challenge
because she just wanted to “become one of those
people who effortlessly use their bikes to get from A to... B (school, shops,
park...)”, plus of course she read an e-card proclaiming that “riding a bicycle everyday makes you more awesome
than the general population”.
However,
even though she took up the challenge for practical reasons, she soon discovered
how much fun it was and would happily run out the door bike in tow, when she
got the chance because often her short cycle might be the only time “all day that I was ALONE- and all parents know what a
treat that can be ...”
Mostly though she discovered: “HOW good cycling actually feels…” After her first cycle she
wrote: “I felt very... free... and
youthful!”
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