I personally have great respect for Mick as a talented cyclist and as someone who gave me the confidence to race and who helped me from day one. When I joined the wheelers in 2007 It was with the definite intention to race so perhaps foolishly I promoted myself to the A group. There were many occasions when Mick would have pushed me back up to the group after I dropped off the back, I’m sure he was thinking I should not be out with the big guns but he sacrificed his training to help me and insisted that one day with some proper training I would be strong enough! Mick, tell me about starting cycling?
I started cycling in 1981 when I qualified to represent Westmeath in the U16 Community Games finals held annually then in Butlins in Co Meath. Albert Morris was the official at the Westmeath final and he convinced me after the race to come out and train with the Mullingar Cycling Club of which he was Chairman. Albert organised a club league and a few of us raced around the Cloughan route. Its funny because a few of the lads that were in the cycling club back then are still cycling, David Shaw, Noel Delaney and Paddy Ronan.
I rode the final in Butlins on David Shaw’s bike as mine was an old gate! David and Martin Queenan came to Butlins to cheer me on. I raced against many established riders that day and finished in the top 10 happy with my days racing. That was my first real taste of competitive racing and I loved it – the bug had bitten! So you started racing at a National level?
Yes, over the course of the next 2 years I raced as an U16 and a junior as often as I could but racing was very much dependant on whom I could scab a lift from. With only a couple of lads racing it was invariably Joe Shaw (David’s Dad) or Paddy Ronan who obliged. There were only a handful of lads racing including David Shaw, Donnacha Coll and Eddie Cooney. In 1983 the four of us competed in the Gorey 3 day. My abiding memory is that it snowed on the Easter Sunday stage and we were frozen with the cold. Donnacha abandoned the stage and used up all the hot water before the rest of got back to the B & B! Also in the club that year were a young Fergal Conlon, Barney Flynn and Paddy Ronan.
So the cycling club was growing? Joe Duffy got involved with the cycling club then? Over the course of the next 2 to 3 years Joe worked his magic, got a few good organisers into the club and before we knew it Mullingar Cycling was sponsored by CookElectric and won Club of the year in the late eighties. The hard work that brought the success at that time was put in by Joe, Kevin Monaghan, Seamus McGowan, Liam Kenny and Billy Smyth. A whole host of underage talent was unearthed by cycling skills training and inter schools competitions. The club had a club mini-bus with a bike trailer and bike rack. We had to almost fight to get a place on the bus going to races! My two brothers Dermot and Ken started cycling too and our house was often like a madhouse with bikes and gear everywhere. My father used to say that the bikes cost more to maintain than the family car! You continued racing? You must be happy to see the success the club is having now with racing? Last question! – The key to success for the club? Thank you Mick!
Mick (left) with some of his Cook Electric team-mates back in the mid eighties. |
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