Support cycling
national |
miscellaneous |
press release 
Saturday February 03, 2007 15:41
by jay - Velodrome Ireland
velodromeireland at hotmail dot com
Jason/Garrett
Velodrome and Lanes
We the undersigned note call on the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism and the Department of Transport to invest in facilities to encourage the pursuit of cycling in Ireland.
It is now 20 years since Stephen Roche won the Tour de France and in that time car dependency has been encouraged at the expense of cycling. More teenagers drive to school than cycle.
To encourage cycling in Ireland, we call for more cycle lanes, cycle tracks to encourage cycling at all ages and a national velodrome with a cycling academy to find a new generation of world class cyclists in Ireland.
We need your support!
Please sign this petition, which will be in all Dublin City Centre cycling shops shortly. The campaign will expand nationwide. Anyone who wants help, send us a message. We want to get tens of thousands of signatures. The petition will be presented to the Departments of Health, Transport, Tourism and the Irish Sports Council when we achieve the required number of signatures.
Peope pay up to €800 to join a gym, while others play sports on play station. CYCLING is free! A velodrome would help train Ireland's best cyclist. Currently we have an appalling situation where Ireland's top cyclists are hindered in their training because they have to go to England, Wales and Belgium for indoor training!!
After the last election the government could not manage a Bertie Bowl- how about a VELODROME?
WE NEED YOU TO GET INVOLVED!!
SEND YOUR COMMENTS AND OPINIONS TO US!!!
VELODROMEIRELAND@HOTMAIL.COM
Comments (4 of 4)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4Great idea- just what we need!!!
Velodromes are cool and all -- I've ridden in several, but they're about as relevant to the decline of cycling in Ireland as greyhound tracks.
It's possible that I'm just being overly negative, but it seems that if Cycling Ireland is worried about declining cyclist numbers then they'd do well to approach some of the root reasons:
1. Increasing coralling and marginalisation of cyclists by the promotion of bicycle paths and bicycle helmets. Ironically these specific measures are often pushed for by organisations such as Cycling Ireland which claim to be "representing" cyclists.
2. Lack of a prosecution of dangerous drivers (even to the extreme of drunks getting away with it there's a complete lack of seriousness in the approach of Irish drivers to the problem of how to drive safely).
3. Lack of provision of secured, wet-weather bicycle parking. How hard can it be to dedicated a set of rooms around Dublin (or any other large town or city) with attendants to store your bike and bring it out on production of a ticket?
4. A general insecure snobbery pervasive in the society which judges people that bicycle as inferior to those that drive -- it's possible that making the sport aspect more visible would overcome this stigma but it's unlikely. (As a side note I would be prepared to bet that a large number of those that own Colnagos are going to drive them to the velodrome instead of cycling).
5. Lack of tax-rebates or other incentives to enable the purchase of good lights, wet-weather gear, bicycles, reflective materials, tires, repairs, etc. Cyclists are already short-changed by the amount of their contribution to general revenues that is dedicated to maintaining a road-network on which it is increasingly unpleasant to travel and the subsidisation of fuel imports. Given the importance of reducing carbon-dioxide emissions it would seem both prudent and fair to try and reverse the trend which sees falling numbers of cyclists in Ireland.
Do Cycling Ireland have any proof that building velodromes will do anything to benefit the general lot of cyclists, many of whom would have no interest in keirin, nitto drop bars or interval training?
All that said, I'd love to see a velodrom in Dublin (or Cork or wherever), I just think there are more productive and urgent ways for Cycling Ireland to spend their time given the concerns they reference in this appeal.
I commute from Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin to Grafton Street by bicycle every day. I cannot believe that Dublin City Council widened the road at Elm Park and St. Mary's School for the Blind, and did not provide cycle lanes. It is one of the most dangerous stretches of road into and out of Dublin for cyclists. We need secure cycle lanes. Bus lanes will not do as it is as dangerous, if not more so, to cycle beside a bus as it is to cycle in traffic.
Cycling is a wonderful way to travel and to commute. It's good for your health, your pocket and the environment.
Cycling in dirty air is bad for you.
It would be better to sit on the bus etc, and read a book and do , say, stretching and self massage etc , THEN do ones exercise in a green area, with fresh, moist , clean air.
I would recommend a mask and/or only breathing through the nose.
New Scientist had a story that strenuous exercise in dirty air, only makes your blood sticky, which is bad.
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