ABOUT US
Founded in 1948, the club was formed by a group of training partners and in 1949 affiliated to the newly formed Cumann Rothaíochta na hÉireann CRE. Orwell Wheelers allegedly gets its name from Orwell Road in Rathgar. The club today is amongst the biggest and most famous cycling clubs on the island of Ireland.
Based in Dublin, we cater to all levels of fitness and ability - from beginners to elite riders, male and female from youth to veteran. The club had its roots in road racing but has become very active in many other areas including leisure cycling, touring, mountain biking, audaxing, Randonnée events, cyclocross and track racing. We run organised weekly training spins most of the year.
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OVER 70 YEARS OF TOP LEVEL CYCLING IN IRELAND
Back in the late 1970’s and early 80’s the club under the coaching of Noel O’Neill and Paddy Doran started to attract schoolboys into the Club. They produced some well-known names including Stephen Roche, Paul Kimmage, Martin Earley, Damien Long, Paul Tansey, Bernard & Richard McCormack and Sean O’Grady.
Orwell Wheelers has had its ups and downs over the years. It was booming back in the 1950’s and peaked again in the 1990’s during Kelly and Roche’s successful racing years. It declined in 1967 when the club only had one member Liam Keenan along with the committee. From 2008 the club started to flourish again, and membership numbers rose rapidly year on year to its current levels now holding steady in the 600’s.
The club today boasts of members who have taken part in Olympics, Paralympics, World championships, National championships both senior and junior and members turned professional with European teams. While our coaching of youths and juniors is continually producing young starts for the future.
Leisure cycling is a mainstay of all cycling clubs. During the off season (winter months) cyclists will want to regain their fitness and build for the following season.
But in 2008 Orwell took a major step forward and put a focus on leisure cycling. They introduced a dedicated committee member to look after leisure events. The first cycle arranged commenced from Marley Park car park and only had 6 cyclists. Funnily there was only one Irish person the rest came from Canada, Spain, Australia and the UK. But things have changed over the years.
Over the winter months the usual Sunday cycles took place from Joe Daly’s shop in Dundrum but once the summer months arrived (and we did get summers in those days) the leisure cycles moved to Saturday with racing taking place on Sundays. We tried to keep these cycles fun with a coffee stop on each cycle. There were no GPS bike computers in those days, so all routes were worked out by way of Ordnance survey maps. In fact, some members brought the maps with them, just in case.
Word was spreading about the friendly club in Dundrum and member numbers increased year on year. Cycle Ireland once commented that we would be able to cater for all these members and that was when we reached 300. Yes we did and we have continued to do so and that is mainly thanks to all the members who with training have volunteered to become group leaders for all our leisure cycles and all those who behind the scenes on the leisure/social committee (and others) organise rides and events for everyone’s benefit.
