13th-22nd June 2014, Operation Transportation Participants Posts and Profiles

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 Michelle Walsh and Anthony Shine

b Margaret Linehan and husband John Mullins

b Two Ballincollig Based Friends, who had not cycled since their pre-teen years:

b Andrea Minnie and Maria Kalaitzake

1.     

Siobhán was the sportiest cyclist of the group. For her final two cycles she covered 35km and 60km respectively! Prior to “Operation Transportation” Siobhán had not been doing much cycling. 

     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. 

     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.

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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.

Andrea discovered that: “Bike riding is a great way of spending time with the kids outdoors, and it can be done pretty much all year.” 

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!”