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Last Updated: Apr 11th, 2008 - 21:19:36 |
Orwell Wheelers were established in 1948 and are currently planning a major event to celebrate the 60th anniversary, to be held towards the end of the year.
There have been many illustrious members over the years, and while most people know that Stephen Roche started his career with us, we have had we have had Martin Earley, who famously won a Tour de France stage into Pau, Laurence Roche, who rode and finished the Tour in 1990, and former national champion and talent spotter extrordinaire, Noel O'Neill (still riding with the Club incidentally). More recently, Nicholas Roche, son of Stephen and currently a pro with Credit Agricole, was a member before he left for France.
The Club has undergone something of a "Lazarus" type revival in recent years. By the late 1990's numbers had dwindled to single figures and was struggling to survive.
New members were joining, but there was no structure in place to cater for them, so they drifted away. We decided to try and reverse this trend by firstly developing the much neglected touring side of the Club and organising groups based on ability and experience so that people could graduate from an easy group through to a middle group at their own pace. This has been very successful and our Sunday spins would have an average of 45-50 riders split over 3 groups, each one marshalled by an experienced member, on a route published in advance on our website (www.orwellwheelers.org). All of the experienced members are rostered to take out the beginner group at least once during the winter, a duty no one ever complains about.
The beginner group is so popular that we're considering running it through the year, and not just in winter as at present. Over the last few years, the numbers have gradually grown, to a stage where we are now one of the biggest Clubs in the country. This growth has been aided to a large degree by generous sponsorship from Dundrum Town Centre and Bertoni and this year we have added Scott McDonald's Winning Solutions to the Orwell jersey.
We are lucky enough to have 3 fully qualified coaches on our books, Paddy Doran and Aidan Hammond and Scott McDonald who regularly run evening coaching sessions, with a broad range of topics, from basic bike maintenance, to bike position and racing tactics.
While our main annual focus is the FBD Ras, where we are one of the small number of Clubs who are ever-present, we also host 2 open races, the Noel and Kieran Hammond memorial races held in May and the Stephen Roche Classic run in June on the 1 mile Meadowmount circuit. We have now established a randonee, organised by our touring section, a 100km warm up for the Wicklow 200, scheduled for April 27th this year.
We have signed up over 150 members for 2008, which includes 20 women and 8 junior & underage so we are confident we'll be around for the next 60 years as well.
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Pictures courtesy of Paul Tansey
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