From Longford to Galway: Sean's bike gets a new lease of life

Recycling is the process of using something that would otherwise be thrown away as rubbish and turning into a new product.

Well known Longford taxi driver Seán Nevin has given an added dimension to the term by recycling a bicycle, or to be more correct a tandem.

Guide Dog owner and Chair of the Balbriggan/North County Dublin Branch of Irish Guide Dogs Tom O'Neill never allowed his visual impairment to infringe on his life.
In the past Tom completed the Dublin to Belfast Mari-cycle three times.
His friend, Seán, told him he was looking for a new home for a tandem bicycle: “I have been a friend of Seán's for many years and on one trip he said he had a tandem in storage that he had bought and rarely, if ever, used.

“I said I knew a cycling club for the blind in Galway and I would be able to make a link for him to the club and pass it on.”
Sean took the bike out of storage and brought it to Longford's top bicycle doctor, Kevin Martin of KM cycles. Kevin upgraded it to a very high standard with new cables for brakes and gears, new pedals, and tyres plus several bits more.

At the end of last month Mark Donlon of Longford Couriers took the upcycled bicycle to Galway and Sean was there to hand it over to two members of the Galway tandem cycling and activity club for the blind.

The bicycle will now be used by blind and visually impaired people in the Galway club: “I sold my own tandem some 20 years ago after completing the Dublin to Belfast Mari-cycle three times. Sean was delighted to know the tandem would have a good home and a home that it would be used in,” Tom told the Leader.
The recycled bicycle will now bring joy and freedom to the visually impaired of the City of Tribes.