On your bike in Fore

With funding from Healthy Ireland, Fore Heritage and Amenity Group organised a bicycle workshop in Fore on Saturday.

“The aim of today’s workshop,” said Frank McDermott, chair of the group, “is to provide children with information and skills to help them to maintain and repair their bikes.

“For these youngsters, having their bikes is critically important – they are their links to training, to meeting friends and to getting out and about. Just like Seamus and myself at that age, the bike is now the only way to be getting around.

“It will be back to how it used to be, bikes the go to mode of transport for getting anywhere in the locality.”

Cllr McDermott expressed gratitude to Steve Franzoni of OE Bikes in Mullingar and Ryan Fitzpatrick of Lockdown Life.

“Both of those men have a keen interest in cycling, an excellent knowledge and understanding and they also have worked with youth development,” he said. “The Healthy Ireland Funding helped us to put together a workshop and kit that worked through many aspects of responsible bike ownership and introduced the teenagers to good practices, support and how they can continue to look after their bikes.”

Cllr McDermott was also most interested to hear from the children about developments they would like to see.

“These young people were asking about getting places to safely store their bikes at school and at their pitches. They were talking about safe routes to training and increased awareness from drivers that there are so many cyclists out and about now.

“They would love to see greater opportunities for training and coaching in cycling so this was a great first step.”