Western Lakes Club Awards

Every year the club hosts a night out for all its members and presents awards to people who have achieved or volunteered their time above the ordinary, 2009 was one of the better ones for the club.

We were extremely active on all fronts, from Youth cycling right through to the racers.

Events the club organised

The club organised 2 very successful leisure events, The Mask Challenge and The Polkadot challenge, good numbers turned up for both.

We promoted 3 road races, The Bog Week GP and Gogarty cup in Tully Cross/ Letterfrack area and the Ballinrobe 2 day.

On top of all that the club runs an 11 round club league for all its members with venues scattered all around North and West Mayo, on top of that it also gets involved in organising mountain bike races in various woods close to Ballinrobe.

This year the club membership had a bumper year with nearly 80 people affiliated to cycling Ireland, it has at least another 30 people that help out at different events who are not affiliated.

The club has the use of an old factory building which we call the cycling centre which we use like a club house, its fully kitted out with spare bikes and Turbo trainers for classes etc.

Last year we built a BMX track, one of the only ones in the whole of the country and this could well be the crown jewel in the years to come as the sport is fast and explosive and very exciting to watch, watch out 2016, Olympic year.

On top of all that the club has an administration side that sorts out Insurance and affiliation to the various bodies both locally and Nationally, the committee are involved in adding news to the club website, this helps to give some PR to our sponsors as well as alerting members of what is going on in the club..

The club even has its own Kit and leisure wear and most members are proud to wear it.

We also have a club Bus (van) with sponsors logos and information printed on panels, this Bus is seen regularly at events around the country.

The club even promotes extreme Challenges, in 2009 the challenge was to cycle from Mizen head to Malin head in under 20hrs as a 20 person group, the club had 5 members on the team, and had another 5 helping out as crew.

Every year we want our members to get involved with the club committee as we are all volunteers and the more members that get involved to help, the less burdened our committee will be.

Honouring our members gives us a few reasons to have a great night out, it creates camaraderie, and it builds esteem and unites the members.

This year the following people were nominated.

Youth Cyclist of the year Mark Finnerty, for his super achievement of winning a Gold medal at the National Community Games

Leisure Cyclist Fergal O Neill, for his role in the development and participation of leisure cycling.

Racing cyclists Joe and Padraig Marrey, for winning Gold medals at the National Time Trail Champs, on the Tandem

Club person of the year, Brendan Scullion won this title for is unselfish contribution to cycling in all its facets, Brendan has to drive 110 miles round trip to attend the closest event near the club, he does this at least once a week and in most cases anything up to 3 or 4 times in a week, he helped out at every event the club held throughout the year.