From Kilkenny to Mondello - Meagher ready to cycle around the clock!

A Marble City Cycler is preparing to cycle around the clock in the name of charity.

Ciara Meagher will be taking on a mammoth challenge when she joins the VeloFlamingo team for a 24-hour endurance cycle at Mondello Park this weekend.

“I did the Mondello24 last year as part of the Women’s Commission cycling team,” she said. “It was a lot of fun so I decided, ‘why not go again?’”

Meagher will be part of an eight-woman team cycling to support the National Breast Cancer Research Institute. It will be a big task, but one she is relishing.

Ciara Meagher, a member of the Marble City Cyclers, will take on a 24-hour cycling challenge at Mondello Park this weekend

“I’ve been able to do a lot of my training with the Marble City Cyclers for this event, which has been great,” she said. “You can’t really prepare for the night-time cycling and the lack of sleep that comes with an event like this, so you just train to be as fit as you can from a cycling aspect. After that, hopefully  everything else will take care of itself.”

Fastest lap

While Mondello Park is known for being the home of motorsport in Ireland  it will take on a different look this weekend as an army of cyclists and their pitcrews take over for the event, which will see individuals and teams compete to complete the most laps across a 24-hour time limit. Meagher will be hoping her past experience - she clocked the fastest women’s lap through the night last year - will count towards this year’s event,  

“With every corner you take the wind could be blowing in a different direction, but there are a lot of different challenges,” she said. 

“With a team of eight, the way we structured it last year was to do a 15/20 minute stint every two hours while, in the night, we split into teams of four so you could have a bit more rest. A lot of it depends on how people feel as the time progresses.

“There is a lot of planning for an event like this, but we have a great team behind us to keep everything on track and to plan all the logistics for us.”

That team will include another well-known face from Kilkenny cycling circles as Elizabeth Kent, a former Rás na mBan and Mondello24 participant, will be part of the VeloFlamingo pitcrew for the weekend.

“We are delighted to be raising money for the NBCRI,” said Tara Nelson of VeloFlamingo, who put the team together. “It’s a charity that is very close to my heart as my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in her late 20s. Thankfully she recovered well and it is the advancements made over the years thanks to research institutes like NBCRI that helps to increase the survival rate of those that are diagnosed with breast cancer.”

Donations to the team can be made here