17th June Dan Boyle takes a cycle down the Marina!

A Bike "walk" down the Marina

According to Dan Boyle:

No formal Bike Week event today so I've taken the bike for its usual 'walk' along the Marina stopping in Blackrock for a coffee.
It's been raining incessantly for 24 hours so there are plenty of puddles -some pond like!



The marina under sunshine. Photo by Adrian on www.inyourfootstops.com



16th June The rain didn't stop Martha from getting on the bike

Cycle in the rain!!

According to Martha:

Just back from my cycle and it was great. No such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes. The peaked cap and water proof gloves are a must. The real unpleasantness on a rainy day is getting it in your eyes, and a cap solves all that.

This is why Martha embraces cycling through the puddles!

30 seconds to get out of raingear and into my slippers. My chin got wet, which is way less than when I run out of the car in the rain. A fearless attitude and good gear and when you are in the rain it is never as bad as it sounds or looks from inside. It was great fun cycling through puddles and not fearing car splashes. Ireland, I embrace you, in all you crazy weather moods!

15th June, Maurice Danaher Gets Checked and Trained up

Maurice Must Be More Assertive?

According to Maurice:

Today I did a fitness assessment in LeisureWorld near CIT at 9.30 am. This was easy enough, but I was told my blood pressure was a bit high so I will need to get that checked out.

 After coffee, I went for cycle training with Darren MacAdam O'Connell and Miro Wartena.

Some of the cycle training seemed basic enough to me but still I learned how to be more assertive on the road and especially how to avoid cars turning off to the left cutting across me and also how to keep clear of car doors opening.

Learning about the Five Points of Contact to engage when breaking. 
2 hands on the handlebars + 2 feet on pedals + 1 area on your seat = Maximum Brake Power

 For more such tips see:
http://www.patrickjohnmccrann.com/blog/bike/how-to-ride-your-bike-like-a-veteran-part-1)

Did not do the bit on going all the way around the Wilton Road roundabout as I had to leave for lunch. I was quite tired by the time I got back home around 1 pm for lunch.

The weather was OK as we managed to avoid any heavy rain with just light showers.

Editor's Note:

Mr. Danaher can be seen and heard onthe Youtube channel linked to this Diary. See him kick off an interesting discussion on Junctions here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLe_HNPxMPM&feature=youtu.be

15th June 2013, What Dave Did Next!

One of the LeisureWorld Gym Rooms Ref: http://bishopstown.leisureworldcork.com/

Aoife Puts Dave Through His Paces...

Editor's Note...

 We aren't sure how Dave felt about rising so early on a Saturday morning. ( Comment below if you think you know) however, true to his commitment he turned up at Leisureworld for a 9:30 appointment.

The Appointment was with Fitness Instructor Aoife Twohig.

LeisureWorld Personal Trainer: Aoife Twohig

First off, Aoife took Dave's Vital Statistics- weight, blood pressure, body fat etc. The she  got Dave to undertake a "sub-maximal fitness test".

For this Dave had to pedal away at a steady rate on a Cycle Ergometer. This looks rather like a regular Gym Bike but when you put your hands on the Bike-handles, a reading of your heartrate pops up! The Ergometer also measured how quickly Dave was cycling, so that in the end, a graph could be plotted comparing work load to heartrate.

The fitter a person is, the greater the work output at a given heartrate....
And the reason its called Sub-maximal Fitness Testing is that the Fitness tester makes sure that the cyclist doesn't let their heart-rate reach the estimated maximum for the cyclists age. This means that the test is safer for peopel of varying fitness levels because the cyclists don't have to push themselves too hard. Also on average it is estimated that at heartrates between 115bpm and 150 bpm the relationshiop between heartrate, oxygen intake and workload is fairly linear- so it is easier to gauge fitness.


For more about the pros and cons see: http://www.acefitness.org/fitnessqanda/fitnessqanda_display.aspx?itemid=255

For more on the different types of Fitness Tests see: http://www.topendsports.com/testing/aerobic.htm
or
http://acefitness.infopop.net/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/452108123/m/7901074661

Here is what Dave might have looked like whilsts doing his test:



Photo from: http://www.rustfitness.com/bikes.html

 Except that the Ergometer bike probably looked more like this:

From: http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~bme301/ergometer/ERGOweb/nordictracksl710.htm

Really like the bottle holder in that model. The manufacturers could easily include a waterbottle with the machine!! :)


From: http://www.exrx.net/Testing/YMCACycleTest.html

The photo above is just included for fun because this editor is a bit of a Heath Robinson fan.

15th June, Shane Posts about Moll's Gap

Shane waxes Lyrical on the Beauty of Moll's Gap

According to Shane:
Extract from: http://mccarthyshane.com/operation-transportation-cork-bike-week/

I now find myself back in Killarney. I don’t think there could be anywhere more beautiful for cycling.

Three years ago I bought myself a racer and this morning I went for a spin with a friend of mine. An 82km spin at that. We travelled from Killarney to Kenmare, through the mountains, and back down through Moll’s Gap.

Sights to be seen when cycling through the majestic Moll's Gap mountainscape.

Unfortunately today was not one Kerry’s finest and most of the world-renowned scenery found itself hidden behind heavy mist and sheets of relentless rain.

After a while you forget about the rain, but what did strike me harder than any climatic elements was the amount of tourists we met cycling against us, back up through the hills and mountains.

We were kitted out in our lyrca on our light carbon bikes, whereas they wore jeans and pushed much heavier bicycles. They seemed to enjoy being out in the fresh air though, with each group we passed giving us a big wave or a thumbs up. The weather certainly did not wet their spirits, something which gave us a boost when we had 30km to go.



Even in the rain, Moll's Gap has a moody charm. Image from: http://climbingirelandsmountains.blogspot.ie/

This man below looks like the type Shane described:

From: http://ireland.guide4world.com/munster/kerry/dunloe.html

15th June Martha sets off for her first operation transportation cycle!

Martha's enjoys:

Cycling, tootling, talking,

Cycling, tootling,chatting

And a more peaceful neighbourhood

- apart from all the cycling tootling and talking....

According to Martha:

This evening after a rather hectic day, I tootled off to my local shop to put some kind of food into the house! The ten minute cycle elongated of course, with chatting! That's the great thing about the bike; meet a friend or neighbour and just tootle over at your own
ease.

Okay this isn't Martha or  Ireland for that matter. But no matter where you are on a bike, it is very easy to pull over and chat, as Martha has been finding out. Image is from www.trendy-travel.eu

While I was talking, my bike was borrowed and taken for a spin around the estate by my friends husband. When retrieved, I still had not been to the shop. So more tootling and talking along the way.

I also noticed the difference the bicyle makes to the atmosphere of a place. When a car comes, all the children run to the foot path, disrupting their games and mothers start screeching after young children not to run in front of the car. When you are on the bike, everyone smiles and salutes you and you win brownie points by efficiently retrieving roving footballs. I think I'm going to really enjoy operation transportation.



Bikes don't  splash people or disrupt play the way cars do,
although admittedly the boys in this photo may have wanted to be splashed, see: http://metro.co.uk/2008/07/07/car-puddle-soakings-new-youth-craze-252530/ for the source.



14th June Introducing Dan Boyle

Will Dan Boyle Walk the Talk or

Should that be "Bike for the Mike" ?

From The Editors:

Does Dan Boyle need an introduction?

The Dan Boyle who will be blogging about his Cycling expoits for the next ten days is the same Dan Boyle who has featured on many an election poster around Cork for the past 20 odd years...

Having served as a TD from 2002 to 2007, he became a senator in 2007 after losing his Dail seat and was part of the team that negotiated the Green party- Fianna Fail Coalition in 2007. He is currently Director of Green Foundation Ireland http://www.greenfoundationireland.ie/about-gfi/ amongst other things and if you google his name you'll find much news of a political comeback in the media..

But this blog is all about the cycling!!

And it seems that, although not listed in his linkedin skills, ( See: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/) he says he's rather keen on cycling...