This article is from page 20 of the 2011-06-14 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 20 JPG
CLARE County Council have teamed up with An Taisce in a novel plan to show the way for the rest of the country by organizing the first ever Banner Bike Week – a ground-breaking initiative to take cars off Clare’s roads.
Local An Taisce activist Róisín Ní Ghairbhith and the council’s road safety officer Barry Keating are spearheading the week long festival in which hundreds of people are expected to take to their bikes.
“This is about changing people’s habits and giving them the incentive to get back on their bikes,” says Ms Ní Ghairbhith. “As part of that we are organizing a series of events throughout the week to increase the amount of bike owners in the county by making cheap and free bikes available.”
The week starts this coming Saturday with what Ní Ghairbhith describes as “the Banner’s biggest ever bring a bike back bonanza”. At Gaelscoil Mhichíl Ciosóg in Ennis, four bike mechanics will be on hand to fix un-used bikes and find new homes for them in auction that takes place at 1pm.
The following day a free bike repair workshop takes place at Teach Ceol in Ennistymon between 2pm and 5pm.
The following Wednesday a series of community cycles will take place in Shannon, Kilrush and Ennis. “Up to 1000 children from fourth, fifth and sixth classes in 20 schools and 300 other members of the community will take part,” says Ms Ní Ghairbhith.
“It’s to show people safe cycling routes available in their home town. They will do Children from all the schools in these 3 towns will be doing a 7km cycle around their town and all staff, parents and members of the community invited to come along and cycle with them on the day,” she adds. A Teens on Wheels event takes place on June 26 – this involves a teenagers cycling a 7km loop form Ennistymon to Lahinch and back, while the following day a Community and Family Cycle from Ennistymon to Lahinch takes place with a starting time of 1pm.