Pedal power to the Picnic is a real tour de force

It’s the fifth year of a charity cycle that makes getting to Laois a fun ride that beats the traffic. Richard Fitzpatrick reports

THE most novel way to get to this year’s Electric Picnic, which will be the tenth staging of the popular festival, has to be by bicycle. The first Tour de Picnic cycle rolled out of Dublin for the 80km trek down to Stradbally Hall in Laois in 2009.

“It was the world’s first cycle to a festival,” says co-founder Brian McDermott. “We were into cycling and decided to do it one year with about 30 people. The second year we were keen to get a charity involved. We did that, and promoted it, and got a really good response — 600 people in the second year.”

This year’s Tour de Picnic is fundraising for Laura Lynn House Children’s Hospice and Thank You Crumlin, Love Mia, a charity founded by 12-year-old Mia Keaveney, a lifelong patient of Crumlin Hospital, who will cycle the last leg of the journey alongside the people doing the inaugural 10km charity run.

Dubliner Mark Rudden is a veteran of all four of the Tour de Picnics, and he will do the cycle again this year. “The first year I did it, I was looking for a different way of getting to the festival. I don’t think it makes sense to drive to the festival because you don’t need half the stuff you go with, and there’s always a worry driving home on the Monday morning.

“I looked at different ways — trains and buses — and I do a bit of cycling, so when I saw this come up, I jumped on it. It’s set up like going on holidays. You drop off all your bags to be taken there by bus, like at an airport. Everything is done for you. All you have to do is cycle down.

“The first year we did it, there was no queuing. By the time we got to Athy, we were just passing cars stuck in traffic. We got to cycle right to the entrance, picked up our bags, and were in the campsite within a few minutes. It was so much more convenient. In the last couple of years, it’s obviously just exploded.”

Cyclists must raise €380 to partake with the group, but they get a weekend pass for the festival for their fundraising efforts, in addition to organisational benefits such as first aid and a bike repair service if necessary, food and drinks along the way, ice baths and a massage on arrival, and a bus ride home.

Former Ireland rugby international Malcolm O’Kelly has done the Tour de Picnic for the last three years. “I haven’t come off the bike or I haven’t seen anyone come off their bikes. I’d be of the vibe that you get the right tools to do the job, but you get characters rolling up in mountain bikes and costumes, and off they go.

“You start off in Tallaght, and there’s a bit of entertainment at that end of it. It’s a very pleasant route, down by Blessington, through Kilkullen, and then the big, long road to Athy, which is the most traumatic part of it. There are a couple of picnics along the way, and it finishes with a quaint, country cycle to Stradbally. There’s always good banter en route as well.”

“The thing I love about it is that you only have to be moderately fit,” says Republic of Telly star Jennifer Maguire, who did her first cycle last year and is signed up to do it again this year.

“My only advice is to wear padded shorts or else you’ll have a sore bum for days afterwards. When you get through those barriers at the end, it’s just an amazing feeling: I just cycled 80 kilometres, how do you like them apples? A bottle of Heineken and you’re on your way.”

There’s no time limit for the cycle, with people taking up to nine hours to complete it one time, although five hours is the norm. A guy did the cycle in a bear costume one year. People have done it on one-gear bicycles, and Rudden remembers a couple of girls whose tandem bike broke down one year.

“A gang of us huddled around the bike, working away for half an hour trying to get it back on the road. I remember late on the Saturday night meeting them again in the festival and having great craic with them. You spend the whole weekend meeting people that you met on the cycle. It feels like you’re part of a club.”

- For more information about the Tour de Picnic, visit: www.give2go.ie.