Cork cyclists plan to pass through every county in four days for charity

Five men from Cork are set to embark on a charity fundraising challenge next month which will see participants cycling to all 32 counties on the island of Ireland in just four days.

The fundraiser in aid of the Irish Lung Fibrosis Association (ILFA) was thought-up by BOC colleagues, Adrian Sheehan and Kevin Hedderman, both living in the Blarney area.

“Five years ago, a group of BOC lads decided to cycle Mizen to Malin so really this is how the nucleus of cycling around the country like eejits came around!” Mr Sheehan told The Echo.

“We did it for Pieta and we did it in two and a half days and it was great – it introduced me to cycling, really.

“We were kind of always hoping we were going to do something else after that.” 

The idea of doing the 32 county cycle was also suggested to those elsewhere in the country and now a group of 12 from Cork, Dublin and Mayo are set to take on the four-day challenge starting on June 20.

“We’re staring in a place called Rockchapel in North Cork so that we can easily get to Limerick and Kerry and head away up to Roscommon on the first day and then we finish on the fourth day in Waterford,” Mr Hedderman explained.

“Basically the idea is that we’re touching the 32 counties and the idea would be that when we go over the border we’ll get a picture at each sign but we’ll have it all tracked on Garmin or Strava all the way around.

“It’s about 1,000km in total and about 250km a day or something to that effect.” 

ILFA provides research, education and support for lung fibrosis patients and their families and is, Mr Sheehan said, a charity that is particularly close to his heart.

“I work in the medical side [of BOC] and Kevin works in the industrial side of the company.

“BOC is a big organisation but we do an awful lot of medical gases for patients in hospital and patients in their own home environment.

“The lung fibrosis patients suffer from hardening of the lungs and its high-flow oxygen is what they need so we would have a lot of those patients on our books being paid either privately by themselves or by the HSE covering under a medical card.

“I would, as a manager in the medical side, would have always supported that ILFA group, giving education sessions, sponsoring pulmonary rehab classes for the patients, swimming classes… a lot of them would be on the transplant list in the Mater in Dublin and they need to be very active, in as good as health as possible, before they can get that transplant.

“So it would be close to my working day to day and also close to my heart in that I’ve seen the good work that ILFA does in supporting patients and supporting patients’ families.” 

Also taking part in the challenge are Colin Murphy, John Quill and Michael Creedon all from Cork, Dublin-based father and son duo Robert Nolan and Rob Nolan along with Stephen Royal and, from Mayo, Niall Morley, Tom Hughes, Colin Loughney and Noel Jennings.

Mr Sheehan and Mr Hedderman expressed their thanks to John Leonard who will be driving the supply van for the challenge and also to Ed O'Sullivan who will assist in transporting the Cork participants to the starting point.

To donate to the fundraiser search ‘32 x County Cycle for ILFA’ on www.gofundme.com.