In Fingal, cycling lessons get kids with disabilities pedalling

Seoidín Hyland, age five and a half, has wanted to cycle for the last two years, says her mother, Lisa Hyland.

Her cousins and friends cycle around the neighbourhood, to the park, racing each other. She can’t cycle, so she runs to keep up. But usually she can’t keep up, Seoidín says.

“My legs get tired when I’m running,” she says. “I want to pedal.”

Soon, she’ll be able to. Saturday 31 August was Seoidín’s first day at a free, six-week course in Swords, put on by Fingal County Council for kids with disabilities to learn how to cycle.

Eight years ago, while teaching cycling in schools, Mike Connolly, the cycling instructor, and his brother noticed some kids benefited from more attention and smaller classes, he says.

They came up with the idea of teaching classes outside school specifically for kids with disabilities in Fingal, given the ratio of instructors to students in school.

Says Connolly: “It was easier to actually organise outside of school hours.”

Seoidín was on the waiting list for a year. The course is a half-hour drive from their home, says Hyland. Seoidín wanted to learn sooner, but physically it feels like the right moment anyways, says Hyland.

This summer, Seoidín’s been getting stronger, Hyland says: doing yoga in Portmarnock, and pumping on swings.

Then a week before her first class, she had spontaneously jumped onto their home exercise bike, and, says Hyland, for the first time, her daughter took off pedalling.

Taking off

Connolly has a knack for fitting kids to the right bike for their size and skill level.

Seoidín is obsessed with pink. She’s wearing pink shorts, shoes and a new hot pink helmet – and she won’t take less than the hot pink bike. “I want this one,” she says, spotting it. “It’s my favourite colour.”

This one has pedals, though, and Connolly, the instructor, wants her to ride a smaller balance bike, he says. That way she’ll get the movement down and then pedalling will come naturally.

But she won’t, she wants the pink bike. She wins, and her mom Lisa Hyland grips the handlebars as she happily pedals loops around the small community centre gym.

Hyland has been waiting for this moment for her daughter.

“Hopefully she’ll be able to pedal now soon, so she’ll be able to play with them,” she says. “She’s an independent lady, as you can see.”

She’s seen how frustrating it is for Seoidín to keep up when her cousins try to teach her with a natural ease she’ll never experience, says Hyland.

Seoidín is sociable and Hyland gives her independence, she says, and doesn’t like seeing her disability take away from that.

Seoidín has dyspraxia so she isn’t as strong in her left leg. She hasn’t had the strength to pedal, and it takes more time to master balance.

Hyland wanted Seoidín to take the class because she thinks with time and attention, she will master the skill, she says. “I kind of think they need their own space. They need to learn, as all kids do, when they’re ready.”

She sees it as a benefit not to have the competition of kids without disabilities, she says. “Because kids with disabilities kind of get a little bit more frustrated. So if they can learn in their own time, it’s a lot better, and a lot easier, and it’s more productive.”

Lining up

There’s a high demand for Connolly’s services, says the cycling instructor.

He works full days, six days a week commuting to places around Dublin from his home in the country, he says.

His employee count has grown as the cycling curriculum has expanded in schools, but he and his brother are still among a small number in Dublin providing this additional service for kids with disabilities.

The job requires training, and Connolly said some colleagues don’t feel equipped to work with kids with disabilities.

For him, it’s the best part of his job. “I’ve had money, jobs, many businesses over the years,” Connolly said. “This is by far the best thing I’ve ever done.”

“It’s so fulfilling when you see kids, you know, that never had a chance of being able to do this, actually start the pedal by themselves for the first time,” says Connolly.

Making the space

Fingal County Council has been trying to expand who takes up cycling, says Brian McDonagh, a Labour councillor and Fingal’s mayor.

“The big challenge that we face is trying to persuade everybody that cycling is for everybody, that investing in cycling infrastructure is for absolutely everybody,” he says. “And we’ve got to kind of live that.”

“It’s not enough if it’s just, you know, cyclists in lycra with helmets in their 20s to 60s who are bombing along on cycle tracks,” he said.

That’s why facilities like the three learn-to-cycle tracks in Millenium Park in Blanchardstown, and in Brackenstown Road and Holywell Park, Swords, that the council has been rolling out are important, he said.

Stephen McGinn, Fingal County Council’s walking and cycling officer, came up with the idea to put these tracks on unused space in Fingal – paving asphalt on lots and painting on traffic striping of small-scale roads, traffic circles, crosswalks, and bike lanes.

The tracks are used to teach people how to ride bikes and learn safe road practices, but they’re also a free outdoor space to have fun and get kids outside, he said.

Still though, while neighbouring adult care homes have practised cycling at the Blanchardstown learn-to-cycle tracks, Connolly hasn’t introduced his classes for kids with disabilities to outdoor tracks.

He said he feels better keeping them in the gyms.“Even though they’re a similar age, our guys need a lot more time to concentrate. They can’t have distractions.”

Outdoors, there’s too much going on, he says. “There’s people walking by. There could be football, there could be something else going on.”

A closed area seems safer, he says. “Also, some of the guys with disabilities are at flight risk. So there’s a chance, like, if they see something, boom, they’re gone. They’re gone running.”

But that doesn’t mean the kids he teaches will never use the tracks, he says.

“By the end of their time, say, after six weeks, or maybe 12 weeks, whatever it is, there’s no reason why they can’t integrate with the rest of them. No reason whatsoever,” Connolly said. “Once they’re pedalling, you know. It’s quite easy.”

The gym at Rivervalley Community Centre in Swords where Connolly led his class for disabled students on 31 August is much smaller than the learn-to-cycle tracks.

When he arrives, he discovers that the gym is under renovations, and a third of it closed.

He didn’t know but isn’t dramatic about it. Still, he says, his class is full today, and he knows his new students need room to spread out.

Finding good facilities is one of the biggest obstacles Connolly encounters, he says.

On common ground

When Fiona Weldon, a capacity development officer at the Independent Living Movement Ireland, heard about the classes to get kids with disabilities cycling, she said she had a range of emotions.

She loved the idea of helping people expand mobility options, get exercise, and maybe independence, she says.

But she also had a knee-jerk rejection of the idea of separated classes. It made her feel disempowered, she says.

There’s a tension in that those in the disabilities space can see separating disabled people is a method of exclusion, she says.

When classes are segregated, “there is a focus on the impairment label, rather than removing barriers to allow for the equal participation of all disabled people”, she says.

There are so many barriers to cycling. And, disabilities are diverse, affecting what is needed for accommodation.

There’s mobility impairment due to vision, hearing, strength, balance, physical differences, and more. There’s attention deficit or heightened sensitivity to stimuli.

There are also different adaptations: including three-wheel bikes, handcycling, and wheelchair bikes.

And, many barriers are due to the design of footpaths and bike lanes – gaps in the footpath, rocky surfaces, and steps.

Adapted bikes also come at a steep cost and bike lanes sometimes aren’t wide enough for them, and there’s not many manufacturers or mechanics to repair them, says Claire Kenny, a policy assistant at the Independent Living Movement Ireland.

Still, she says, many things that help accessibility for some make more accessibility for all, she says. Like paving smooth uninterrupted surfaces, having wide open pathways, and not having gaps in infrastructure.

Kenny said that integrating classes has benefits. “If you haven’t come across maybe disabled people using different devices, like a three-wheeled bicycle, you don’t know the etiquette around it.”

“It will come second nature to people that have seen it before, and then they won’t stare so much at the disabled person,” she says.

Others at the classes said they were excited about them, though. That a space designed for their kids, with people learning at the same pace in smaller classes, was welcome.

Some kids may not so much have the goal of gaining independence through their cycling.

Cian Reynolds, age 8, rolled up on his new police-themed bike. “I’m the best cyclist in the room,” he said.

It’s his third year in Connolly’s class, and he’s mastered the two-wheeler. Still, with 5 percent vision, unexpected obstacles and uneven ground makes cycling in most settings too risky. Like others in the class, this is where most of his cycling takes place.

For others, like siblings Olivia and Joshua Murphy, age 10 and eight, independence is the aim.

Until recently, they were too small for any two-wheel bikes, says their mother, Laura Murphy. Now they’ve gotten a bit bigger and for the first time fit onto the smallest bikes available.

Murphy says they’re excited to think that by the end of the six weeks, they may be pedalling with their friends.