The column in the local Donegal newspaper about a cycling event the author clearly did not realise was for a popular local cyclist killed out training in a crash with a vehicle.
A local newspaper columnist has written a piece describing how a group of cyclists on a Donegal road at the weekend caused such long delays that the drivers behind them looked like they had “worked up near murderous rage”.
The columnist was apparently unaware that the cycling event he witnessed was being held to celebrate the life of popular cyclist and charity fundraiser Adrian Mullan who died when struck by a van while out training in Donegal last October.
The Inishowen Independent, in a piece penned under columnist Caoimhinn Barr’s byline, explained how motorists were left frustrated on the road by “middle aged men” who were “dressed in shiny Lycra gear and straining as if in the Tour de France”.
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He goes on to suggest that groups of cyclists holding up traffic were unacceptable and that the cyclists should consider “a more appropriate time for such behaviour”.
This, in his view, would be “before 9am on a Sunday”.
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He described driving from Derry towards Moville just after midday on Saturday and seeing the group of cyclists pass in the opposite direction with a line of “about 300” vehicles stuck behind them.
“My side of the road was mostly clear but I frequently had to duck in toward the left as one or two increasingly irate motorists coming the other way decided they could stand no more and edged out onto my side in a desperate bid to get past,” he writes.
“Judging by the faces of some drivers, they had worked up a near murderous rage inside their (cars)…”.
He did not want to add to the “casual hatred and abuse of cyclists”, adding an incident last year in which a local man was pushed from his bike by the occupants of a passing car was “deplorable”.
But it was unacceptable that so many drivers and their passengers should be delayed for lengthy periods so that “a handful of middle aged men might enjoy some sport for an hour or two”.
And that was why he believed group rides would be best before 9am on a Sunday.
He concluded: “Cyclists and motorists have an equal entitlement to the road, but both must exercise much greater degrees of self awareness and take more responsibility for their actions before we can all get along better together”.
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