Celebrating the 200 year birthday of the bicycle, Dublin Cycling Campaign made an awesome showing at this year’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade! It was our biggest entry yet with over 200 participants (one for every year of the history of the bike!) including two original draisienne bikes ferried over by the Dorset based Dandy Chargers group.

We had six different themes each headed by a trailer designed by Phil Murray and bearing our 200 years of the bicycle logo. This will be used throughout 2017. Bikes for Kids led the pack in which many Dublin Cycling Campaigners, both big and small, showed off their cargo, balance, and town bikes amongst others. The next pack was Bikes are Forever with the Durrow High Nelly group riding and doing some jigs and with a Penny Farthing to boot. In the middle we had the Bikes for Sport which included Blanch Wheelies, Lucan BMX, Cyclesuperstore MTB Downhill team, Pulse Triathlon club and Cycling Ireland Professional BMX team. We had a very popular barista cycle for our Bikes for Business second along with Cyclone Couriers and the Bike institute. We also welcomed Georgia in Dublin heading up our Bikes for Style section and Bicycles for Craic finished us off for good measure with Dirt Monkeys stunt bikes. We also had the first showing of the Wind in your Hair tricycle from Clara and Charles from [Cycling Without Age Ireland] http://cyclingwithoutage.ie/ . Sean O’Donnell was cycling in an An Post uniform in Bikes for Business section also.

Campaign members explained after the parade that they were “extraordinarily excited by the energy of all cyclists together as we advocated for better cycling facilities”.

To finish off the parade we all headed to Flannery’s pub on Camden Street where food and sorely needed hot drinks were devoured!

As another member told us, “the attendance level was great, the mix of different bike types was awesome, and the after-party was good to relax at after really miserable weather during the parade. Good we had the safe parking arranged too. Kudos to Paul.”

And yes, a special thank you to Paul Corcoran as the lead organiser of the event, Veronica Conti his apprentice, and to Healthy Ireland, Dublin City Council, and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport for their sponsorship. Thanks to each of the trailer riders and their handlers who braved the strong winds across the city and to Lazy Bike Tours for loaning the trailer bikes. Finally, a sincere thanks also to Paul McQuaid from River Cycles for the trailers and wheels, and to Garrett Murphy for the Graphic Design.

After a gargantuan effort and all the organising, we were disappointed that the TV coverage of the parade was cut short before it reached our last and final group! Very annoying indeed! We are following up with that, but in the meanwhile you can find more photographs of the event.

From the pictures it’s easy to see - as a long time parade participant put it - “The cross generation of cyclists was very heartening… I welcome a day when this is the norm as cyclists of all ages and abilities can cycle safely around Dublin”. Hear hear!

Main Photograph is Marty Mannering from www.Highnelly.ie taken by Robert Francis