Lakeside Wheelers Celebrate 50th Anniversary In Style

There is a commonly held belief that a certain beer producer is supposed to do things better, but there is no contest when it comes to organising birthday parties, the bar is now firmly set by Lakeside Wheelers Mullingar.

Last weekend the club celebrated its 50th anniversary with a programme of events involving over one hundred of its members.

Club History

In 1976 a group of cycling enthusiasts, young and not so young, came together to formally set up a cycling club in Mullingar known as Mullingar Cycling Club. The decision to do this came about following a stage finish of the Tour of Ireland which was hosted in Mullingar and won by Sean Kelly in one of his last victories before turning pro. Kelly went on to win all the major races on the professional calendar and become the number one cyclist in the world, such achievements earned him the title, “King Kelly”.

In the ensuing months and throughout the late 70’s and early 80’s club membership swelled to approximately 30 members who met regularly at Penny’s car park. These enthusiastic young lads were mostly interested in racing and soon enough they had a cool ESB sponsored Cook Electric jersey. Results followed as they travelled the country to races at the weekends in their trusty blue van.

In the late 80’s the club was thriving, so much so that in 1987 it was recognised by Cycling Ireland and awarded Club of the Year. Ironically, considering the special guest for the 50th, this award was presented to club officials by none other than Stephen Roche who that year won the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and the World Championships.

Moving on and ten years later the club found itself in somewhat of a no-man’s-land as membership declined, leaving only fifteen or so cycling on a regular basis. A change of direction followed with the focus turning to leisure cycling and a public meeting attracted over 40 people. A rebirth of sorts followed and with a name change, the club became known as Lakeside Wheelers Mullingar. A new jersey was designed with the now famous yellow, red and blue replacing the previous versions. There was also a reframing of the demographic as the net to find members was thrown beyond Mullingar to the wider Westmeath area.

Membership started to increase and grew at one stage to over 200 with racing making a comeback, more women joining, the introduction of junior development programmes and in 2009 the club was once again recognised nationally winning the Cycling Ireland Club of the Year award for the second time.

Today, the club is once again thriving with almost 200 registered members and although the colour scheme is the same, there have been a few design changes to the jersey including the latest special edition to commemorate the 50th anniversary. Lakeside Wheelers Mullingar is now well and truly established on the Irish cycling scene and it has hosted many important events in Mullingar including five National Championships. There is literally a group for all abilities and annual events include the Tour of the Lakes, the Mullingar GP, Sprocket Rocket, the famously festive Turkey Trot, the Midland League, Women on Wheels and many more. In 2015 a clubhouse was secured in the grounds of Columb Barracks which has proved to be a very beneficial acquisition. Members regularly travel abroad for cycling holidays and there is even a connection with two other European clubs, De Trudy’s in Belgium and Velo Club Oggiono in Italy.

What’s even more exciting is the fact that Lakeside Wheelers has produced some of Ireland’s best cyclists over the past 15 years. Damien Shaw came through the club and went on to compete at the 2011 UCI Para-Cycling Track World Championships in Los Angeles where he and his visually impaired partner won a silver medal. The same pairing narrowly missed out on a podium at the 2012 Paralympics in London where they came up just short in a bronze medal ride-off against Spain. Shaw then went on to concentrate on road racing and won all the main races on the Irish calendar including the National Elite road race in 2015. This victory led to him getting a professional contract with the Sean Kelly An Post-Chain Reaction team with whom he rode for three seasons before the team folded in 2017.

The previously mentioned junior development programme was extremely successful leading to several young Mullingar cyclists travelling the country week in week, out and winning several races. Aaron Wade was very active on the track and won national titles at different categories but he eventually focused on the road and found himself racing in Spain for a few years.

However, two young girls stood out and over a 10 year period Caoimhe and Aoife O’Brien went from Sprocket Rockets to National Champions on road and track. Today, these two athletes are racing professionally, Caoimhe with World Tour team EF Education Oatley while Aoife is just a step lower on the ladder at Continental level, riding with DAS-Hutchinson. Both girls have represented Ireland on several occasions including at the World Cycling Championships in Zurich in 2024.

The Celebrations

Over 100 club members turned up at the clubhouse last Saturday morning to participate in a cycle that took the scenic route to the Hodson Bay Hotel in Athlone for an overnight and celebration dinner. As an added feature the organisers had arranged for the participants to be joined for the weekend by recently retired professional cyclist, Nicolas Roche. Before leaving on a Garda escorted ride through Mullingar town centre the riders were addressed by club President, Jack Nugent, Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Peter Burke and Councillor Aoife Davitt, Cathaoirleach of Westmeath Co. Council.

The spin to Athlone via Moate for refreshments was a huge success and even the weather was more or less perfect for cycling. Later that evening members enjoyed a fabulous dinner and drinks as they listened to speeches by club chairman, Pearse Murphy and President of Cycling Ireland, Ciaran Cannon. Long serving member, Mick Reynolds gave a brief history of the club before club PRO, Shay O’Toole was joined on stage by Nicolas Roche for a short interview.

This was a very interesting segment as Roche gave some great snippets of information about his life as a professional cyclist with some of the biggest teams in the peloton. Among other things, he discussed how he first started in cycling, his famous dad, Stephen Roche, his favourite races, what it takes to ride a three week race like the Tour de France or Giro d’Italia and how he has been spending his time since retiring in 2021. To end the night the crowd was treated to the brilliant sounds of Mullingar band, Broken Strings who had everyone out dancing until the small hours.

The next day after a leisurely breakfast the cyclists departed Athlone on the homeward spin stopping off en route at the Kilbeggan Whiskey Distillery where they were treated to tea, coffee and cookies by the wonderful staff at the Distillery Café. As it happens, Nicolas Roche is somewhat of a connoisseur of whiskey so it was only natural to finish off a great weekend and join him in sampling a drop of the good stuff.

The organising committee of the 50th celebrations included Pearse Murphy, Eugene Duffy, Martin Nally, Jack Nugent, Eddie Hynes and Shay O‘Toole. This group put a lot of work into ensuring everything was in order for these celebrations and they were delighted with how successful it was.

No event on this scale runs off without the help of several people and the organisers would like to pay special tribute to and thank the following:

An Garda Siochana (Traffic Division), Newbrook Tyres, Dunne and Nugent, Solaris Blinds, Kilbeggan Distillery Café, photographers and drone operator Joe Duffy, Joe Duffy (The Downs) and Monika Swietochowska and finally, the brilliant motorbike outriders led by former club chairman, Ed Tyrell.

Finally, a special thanks to all the members who participated in the weekend’s festivities and who helped to make it an extremely special occasion in the ongoing story of Lakeside Wheelers Mullingar.