BMX

Recently Eamonn Wyer did an interview with Cycling Ireland … here’s what he had to say …

PLEASE SEE THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

Club: Epic, I’m a secret mountain-biker, don’t tell anyone.

Role:  One of the backbones at the Ratoath BMX facility – that’s very kind, Shay MacNally is the main man in Ratoath, I’m a willing helper. I’m trying to grow BMX racing and I’ll work with whoever can help that goal. Ratoath is now well established, the local parents are brilliant, they and Shay run it and have helped make it the biggest and best cycling club in the country.

How did you get involved with cycling?

I loved bikes from an early age, kept breaking them when I landed, so loved the arrival of BMX bikes, they were solid! First raced in about 1983/84 got the bug. The most exciting thing you can do on a bike is race 7 other riders over a BMX track, it’s still a massive adrenalin buzz and hasn’t changed a bit.

Who is your cycling role model, and why?

This is a real hard one, I’ve never really had any sporting heroes, I admired Kelly n Roche’s efforts in the 80’s, but roadies don’t count ; ) I’ve always believed you should do it yourself, why not?  if they can do it so can you. But seeing as I can’t do it anymore my new heroes are 5 year old Corey Waller (future superstar) and Kelv1n Batey (current superstar). Now both of these guys should be carrying the Olympic Torch when it comes here, Kelv1n passing it to Corey would be proper, so let’s make that happen.

What was your favourite race/venue?

Semperit BMX Track, Ballyfermot. Sadly gone, great race venue, built beside the social club of the Semperit Tyre Factory by the employees whose kids were BMX’ers, those guys must have had some respect to pull that off, how’s that for social responsibility? You don’t see that anymore. The races every Wednesday night and Sundays made winners out of lots of riders.

What inspired you to create the Ratoath BMX facility?

The 2008 Olympics saw BMX added to the menu, it’s about time BMX got the recognition it deserves, it’s the best sport in the world by a long way. I think it’s addition was a major boost for the games the Olympic Movement should be grateful, one day the I.O.C. might even help Irish BMX out. I knew its addition to the Olympics gave BMX the legitimacy it deserves and would raise people interests. Now it has as much right to funding as 100M, Swimming, Boxing etc… more than Rugby or GAA.  I knew the bang for the buck would be off the scale with BMX but I hadn’t counted on the lack of support and getting the run around. But what kept us going was knowing people would love this sport and in my mind I was seeing the faces of the Finnegans, the Gilmers and Brian Connors who were the organisers of BMX in the 80’s when we regularly had 600 kids at a race, knowing what they did for us and how hard they worked I didn’t want to let them down, otherwise we would have been failures and learned nothing during our lives from that first golden period of Irish BMX.

BMX is the buzz word at the moment, what is the biggest challenge for BMX in Ireland?

Getting tracks built, I’d like to pretend its not hard but you need committed volunteers, you can’t build a track on promises and good intentions. You also need a bit of land (1-2 football pitch sizes is plenty) and the small matter of some funding, 50K is sufficient if you buy wisely.

Getting councils, government and sport bodies interested is hard work. But I’m starting to “feel the love” from Cycling Ireland lately so hopefully the relationships we are building will be worthwhile and effective.  Also it seems BMX Freestyle and Skateboarding will join the Olympics so that will be massive for the scrote army!

The payback for building BMX tracks is massive, Ratoath is barely 6 months old and only open since November and has 450+ members, the next biggest club in Ireland open since the 1980’s hasn’t got 300, so I’ll give all the small clubs in Ireland an open invite to come and see how to attract youth members. Most of our members are youths, the end results will be hundreds even thousands of kids hooked on the best cycle sport known to mankind, they will eventually take over MTB , road racing etc and dominate those sports and win lots of medals, accolades etc and bring glory and economic prosperity to Ireland in the process, we’ll raise a nation of winners and risk takers and grow old having decent sports to watch on TV knowing the streets are safe as the scobies are all tired form BMXing.

What is the key to helping BMX take off in Ireland – e.g. media coverage? More facilities? More volunteers etc? Funding?

Building one track is all it took, as the film went “build it and they will come” so true! People can’t get enough of this, imagine what we could do with proper funding ! I reckon we could build a BMX track in every town in Ireland with over 5,000 population, that’s about 80 towns and easily have 50,000 kids BMX’ing. Cost 4M and pay back is 20M/year on year for life, it’s that simple!

The key is volunteers and funding! But I’ll be happy when we get to 7 tracks of a high quality but each one has to be better than the one before!

Social media has been great! So easy to connect and share, various websites TwentyInch.ie, Biking Dirty, Stiky Bottle, Uberdog, even Irish Cycling gave us a mention! The Irish Times, Sunday Times articles, Radio Nova – what a class act! word of mouth, PJ Gallagher, Richie Byrne and his big moustache covered mouth are all excellent, they all bring something special.  Our sponsors have been great and we couldn’t have done it without the cash they gave us.

There are now several BMX venues in Ireland – describe the process of designing and building the track? How long did it take from beginning to completion?

Not exactly true, there are two BMX tracks in Ireland, Cherry Orchard Indoor – what an explosion of interest in the indoor, the track is set up for kids and beginners and the experienced riders love it too and it has a roof, it’s going to be massive and is pushing all the right buttons. Plans are to upgrade soon to make the track even more appealing as the riders are learning really quick!  Liam Collins and the Cherry Orchard crew are fast becoming part of the bedrock of BMX and appealing to a whole new generation and neighbourhood of potential shredders.

Ratoath should have taken 6 weeks, but took 6 months due to lack of funding, as riders joined we’d buy a lorry load of material and work, then wait! We started in a field with 3 people, no money one digger and hope. As time went by the number helping grew, we let the kids ride the bits we built and made them do some work in exchange.  I think they learned a few new skills along the way, some days 50 turned up to work. During that period Shay and I wondered if anyone would be bothered and we reckoned we’d be happy if 70 joined the club, seems we underestimate it too!

The design was copied from Manchester BMX Club as it’s considered a good racers track and we wanted something competitive for all ability levels not something a few riders can excel on while the others fall off. We’ve seen a 2 year old ride it on a strider! So we got it almost right. We’ll make it more challenging as the skill levels rise, that’s the great thing about BMX tracks it doesn’t take much to modify them.

What is the pathway for a budding BMX cyclist who turns up at the BMX track in Ratoath?

Come in, introduce yourself, fill out an application form, let the organisers see if you can ride and aren’t a danger to yourself or others and then go and get some air! But be quick rumours are the club will close membership at 500 and its at 440 now, they join quicker than we can register them with CI.

You can also have a look at Cherry Orchard, they hire bikes and gear at great prices, they have a roof and toilets! Well worth a visit you won’t be disappointed.

All about the kids …