The views of the wheel people of Ireland

Andrew Robinson

Andrew Robinson, the self-titled Recumbentman, is a familiar sight in Ranelagh and Donnybrook: a distinguished, tweed-wearing, bearded figure in his late sixties who pedals about on an unusual lie-down bicycle. This viola da gamba and ukulele player, and teacher of Renaissance musical theory at the Dublin Institure of Technology Conservatory of Music, is the cause of much concern among the jeep drivers of south Dublin who worry they may have driven right over him as he glides beneath their wing mirrors.

He insists that he is far safer than most cyclists, as the oddity of his device means he is not as prone to what he refers to as “bicycle blindness” as others.

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Marty Mannering of the High Nelly Company, at Cappamore, Co Limerick. Photograph: Brian Gavin/Press 22

Is the bike just an affectation? “Quite the opposite,” he says. “The Pashley PDQ is a lot more comfortable than conventional diamond-framed bikes. It has a wide woven seat and plenty of carrying space behind. It is also faster and less tiring.”

Any drawbacks? “Recumbent bikes are not great over bumps and wheelies are regrettably not possible, but these are so piffling compared to the advantages. Principally, you have a lot less wind resistance and a sudden stop will not send you over the handlebars.”

Robinson (yes, he is the brother of the other well-known bearded Robinson) has done countless miles of pleasurable touring on his bike, including a 1,000-mile trip through France, a 1,400-mile trip to Malmö and others from the north of Spain down to Lisbon and up and down the Yorkshire Dales; all without a trace of saddle-sore. See andrew.robinson.net

Declan Cullen

Cullen's bike cost him €4,500. "It's a Cervélo S3. Full carbon, light, good wheels. The same as the pros ride. Dan Martin [Ireland's top road cyclist] races on one. I had a good enough bike last year, but I just decide I needed a change."

Worth it? “Oh yeah, When you go to go, it goes. One peddle and she’s gone.”

Cullen, a landscaper in Kildare, began cycling to accompany a friend who had to lower his cholesterol. “The friend dropped out and I continued. Got myself a racing bike, then another one – you know the way? You can never have enough bikes.”

“I’d do a 100km on a Sunday, or a 100-ish. You never know how long that ‘ish’ can be… Then another long cycle midweek and you’d hope to get out for another spin too. In winter we do turbo training in the GAA hall: put the bike up on rollers with a racing DVD projected on the wall which sets the pace and the route. It’s more intense than out on the road as you have to keep moving the whole time. Sufferfest is the name of the DVDs and they really do make you suffer. Your legs are burning by the end.”

Cullen is chairman of the Donadea Wheelers, a club moribund for decades until the revival of biking led to its rebirth in 2013. "Our treasurer Tony Dunne does 160km every Wednesday, then 100-ish with us on a Sunday, and another few 100km during the week. It's gruelling, but it clears the head. In June we're cycling from Howth to Achill – 325km in one day."

Two final questions: What’s with the dark glasses and do you shave your legs? “The shades are just for sun and to keep flies out of your eyes.

“And no, I don’t shave. It doesn’t make you any faster. That’s only really for the pros getting massages every day, stops the hairs being pulled out, and when you get road rash after a fall no hairs makes infection less likely.”

Ciarán Cannon

Ciarán Cannon (left) Fine Gael TD for Galway East, says for the last 45 years he has never been more than a few metres from some form of two wheeled transport. "From numerous childhood days spent discovering an ever increasing network of rural roads, to balmy summer nights with my teenage girlfriend - our sometimes awkward silences filled by the whirring of freewheels - my bike has always been a source of immense joy.

“What I savour most is the chance to deeply drink in the landscape. Each sense is on full alert, most of all the sense of smell, filing away the best parts of a journey: the saved turf piled high on a bog road in Attymon, the sea spray by the coast at Ballyvaughan, or a bunch of grapes squashed on hot tarmac in the Languedoc.”

Aged 16 he embarked on a fundraising cycle from Cherbourg to Lourdes for The Irish Pilgrimage Trust, 900km of ever changing landscapes in seven days. He's been doing long trip ever since. "This year I'm attempting my first Etape du Tour, a stage of the Tour de France in the French Alps. A friend who did it two years ago tells me it will be the worst thing and the best thing that I have ever done. She's probably right and I can't wait."

Emily Archer

Archer is an artist focused on promoting environmental awareness through interactive installations, some using old bike parts. “It’s about re-using things while also celebrating the eloquent design of the bike: how it never runs out of fuel and can be fixed by anyone.”

Her Dream Farm installation is a pedal-powered, hydroponic glass house growing edible and medicinal plants. It’s a deliriously scatty, Chitty Bang Bang melee of bicycle parts, copper piping, tin cans and spoons all animated by a trickling stream of falling water – a Tardis suggesting urban micro-farms with the bicycle as the backbone of everything.

“The bike is a key component of any sustainable urban existence,” says Archer. “Dublin could be the ideal bike city, but there’s a pretty bad relationship between cyclists and taxi drivers right now. It can be scary out there. I’ve seen too many accidents and have had near misses. I used to be worried about looking uncool – but these days I’m rarely without my helmet, high-vis and lights.”

Getting a good set of Ortlieb panniers was what first showed Archer the potential of cycling. "They gave me lots of scope to transport stuff. I realised I could go more or less anywhere. I started with cycles around Clare and Galway and then two years ago Sam Bishop and I cycled over the High Atlas mountains in Morocco. The Berber people were so generous, always offering a bed and food. The women seemed to get a real buzz from seeing a woman on a bike.

“To me cycling is a lifestyle choice and a no-brainer: go easy on the planet, be good to your body, de-stress, get some air and save money for the good stuff – like more bike trips.” See emilyrobynarcher.com

Richie Byrne

Byrne is the godfather of Irish mountain biking, responsible for 90 per cent of those involved in the sport, according to some. In the mid-eighties, he came upon people biking down a mountain in Scotland and thought, that looks deadly. "We sourced a few bikes with great difficulty and took some climbers and motocross people out to try them."

Ever since, he’s been coaching, guiding, setting up trails, running races – and winning many. He’s been national champion a few times.

"Mountain biking has never been so popular. I feel we're on the brink of a big upsurge in adventure tourism. People would flock here from Europe and the UK if they knew what we have. The hills are more accessible than in any other country. In the Alps you have to use ski lifts, here roads run right up. People want to get out biking, but when they try to find information, there is nothing there. Fáilte Ireland needs to get its act together."

Byrne's wife Carol Farrelly has been equally active in developing women's mountain biking. "I needed to get more women into it because I got buried when I went out with the men."

That was more than 20 years ago and despite everything, it’s been hard to keep women involved. “There’s lots of women road bikers, but not on MTBs. It is a tough sport. It tears the lungs out of you. Scrambling up the Three Rock or Djouce is rough, you have to believe in yourself and what your bike can do. Speed is always your friend: the faster the better – you’ll soar over the roots and rocks. It’s all about keeping the hands off the brakes.”

She and Richie have travelled all around Ireland by tandem. "Cycling is just such a buzz. Two hours and you are done for the day, go home and eat what you want. Stuff your face."

Rita Gahan

The redoubtable cyclist was a fixture of every village: a spirited woman who, come hail or shine, could be seen out on the roads pedalling between shop, church and home. In Greystones, this position was held by Rita Gahan ever since she first moved to the seaside town in 1970 right up until the day, 41 years later in 2011, when her family finally persuaded her to leave the old Raleigh 20 in the shed. “I miss it terribly,” she says. “I’d still love to get up on it, but the family won’t let me. I have degeneration of my neck and I can’t hold my head up to look in front. I’d be relying on my ears and that mightn’t be quite sensible.”

Gahan reared eight children in Greystones and there were always last minute messages to be got. “I could balance two bags on the handlebars and another on the back carrier, but I never went far distances and thankfully Greystones isn’t all that hilly. Sure anyway, I had the three gears, which could manage anything.”

She was never tempted to splash out on a modern bike with fancy suspension and dozens of gears. “Most of mine were rusty wrecks, just devices of convenience to get to the church, or the nursing home, or to call on a neighbour. Now you can spend thousands on a bike, nearly as much as you’d spend on a car. The strange thing is that the latest high-end models in the Cycle to Work Scheme look like the old ones from long ago, like the High Nelly.”

Marty Mannering

Mannering is devoted to the High Nelly, as was his grandmother, who used to cycle from Meath to the Dublin markets three times a week to sell sacks of vegetables from her garden to earn enough to feed her 13 children. The children would give her a push off in Meath and she couldn’t stop again as the bike was too laden to lift on her own.

There are hundreds of High Nelly stories on this island, and almost the same amount again of old frames, made of virtually indestructible gun-muzzle-grade steel tubing, lying forgotten in ditches and barns.

Mannering had no interest in old bikes and was instead trying to produce modern electric versions when neighbours in Cappamore, Co Limerick came to him wanting their old bikes restored. The demand led to HighNelly.ie which now exports replacement parts to 14 countries.

“Any bike can be refurbished,” he claims, and for €200 he’ll strip and rebuild a bike, no matter its condition. For a further €180 he’ll sand-blast and powder-coat it. The replacement parts will cost another few hundred.

He also manufactures new High Nellies as sumptuous as any vintage automobile, with glinting chrome and burnished leather. With a bit of care they’ll last 100 years. See highnelly.ie

Liam Murray

A life-long passion for working with timber combined with a love of cycling led Liam Murray, a land surveyor from Tipperary, to wonder if ash wood, famously used for hurleys, might not make the ideal bike frame. Years of trial and error led to the Woodelo bike which is akin to a work of art, but Murray insists it has to be judged on performance not beauty. "The frame is as stiff as a high-end carbon bike and is ideal for the road, as timber is a natural shock-absorber, dampening down vibrations."

The process of selecting the timber, cutting the frame with a computer-controlled router, hollowing and hand-sanding it, then varnishing it with at least eight layers, takes two months. The key step is selecting the right piece of ash: sections that radiate from the trunk have the right grain alignment for strength.

“It excites me that ash is a natural sustainable Irish material with a rich cultural history and by combining modern design techniques with traditional processes, we can create a bike that offers real performance benefits. Like a tailored suit, it can be trimmed exactly to the customer’s needs.”

The frame alone costs €2,663, and with the other components comes to at least €4,100. For that you get something akin to a piece of natural sculpture that won’t break, stretch or weaken, just like the handle on a fine axe. See woodelo.ie