Tandem Cycling News



Thu 03 May 12

RNIB - Unique Tandem Cycling Event to be held at Down Royal Racecourse, Lisburn

Saturday 16th June 2012

Come and join us in Ireland’s unique tandem only sportive!

RNIB NI would like to warmly invite you to come to Northern Ireland for a unique tandem only event – the only one of it’s kind in Ireland – on Saturday 16 June 2012 at the Down Royal Racecourse, Lisburn. You can cycle 42 or 10 miles on the road or do some 2 mile circuits round the Racecourse track. For more information or to register and request a
tandem, call Claire or Kathryn on 028 9260 0388 or email (lisburninfocus@rnib.org.ukrnib).



Sat 28 April 12

London 2012 Paralympic Games: Para Phrasing with James Brown, Tandem Cyclist

“We can’t let you race, We’re worried as 20 riders ended up in hospital last year. With only 5pc sight there’s a fair chance you’ll be one of them this year”. Joe Geraghty meets James Brown.

James Brown, 1980’s golden boy of British disabled athletics, is planning a dramatic return at London 2012, in the colours of Ireland. The 47 year old partially sighted Co. Down born athlete, now based in Gloucestershire, is aiming to tandem cycle at the Summer Paralympiad.

On his last visit to these Games, in New York 1984, representing Great Britain, James won gold on the athletics track at 800m and 1500m, setting European and World Records. This time around James’ aim is London 2012 cycling, in tandem with a fully sighted “pilot” Damien Shaw from Mullingar. Last February James and Damien won silver for Ireland at the 4km Tandem Cycling Pursuit at the World Track Paracycling Championships in LA.

Over three decades James has competed at the highest levels in swimming, cycling, athletics and Nordic skiing.

“My first international competition was the World Winter Games for the Blind in Switzerland in 1982,” recalls James “In recent years, with London 2012 coming up, I had an ambition to return to international competition, which would mean my career at this level would span 30 years. That’s my goal now”.

James hails from Portaferry, Co. Down and received much of his education in England. At Worcester College he became aware of the rapid development of organised national and international sport for the Visually Impaired.

After his Swiss competitive winter sports debut, James took to the track for the summer of 1982 where his first senior event was the Rotary International Games at Stokemandeville.

In 1983 James was selected to represent Great Britain at the European Athletics Championships for the Blind in Varna, Bulgaria. Just after 10am on Thursday 5th October 1983 James won his first major athletics gold when he tore the field apart at 800m.

James Brown shattered several records and won multiple medals in what was a golden era in British and Irish Visually Impaired athletics.

In 1983 and 1984 the entire Great Britain athletics team competed at the Dublin Games, for many years organised by Irish Blind Sports. James has fond memories of Dublin. The Dublin Games organisers recall James leading out the field in the metric mile, in May 1984, at Santry Stadium. No fewer than 6 Irish Visually impaired athletes broke 5 minutes (3 under 4.20) in what was a truly exciting race.

The British Visually Impaired athletics rivalries then mirrored that of their able bodied counterparts.

“Yeh, my room mate at the time, Neil Pearson, and I were likened to Coe-Ovett”, muses James, referring to those World Record Olympic middle distance gold medallists of 3 decades ago. For the record James Brown was Seb Coe!

By 1987 the International track career of James Brown reached the finishing line. “I was training so hard my back would not put up with it so I scaled back running and …..took to triathlons!”

This is where you get a real insight into how the visually impaired sometimes push out barriers. They can go places where good eyesight is a must – not 5% or less – to take on challenges.

“I cycled some hilly races across the Pyrenees and Alps,” James remembers, “in open competition on a racing bike – not a tandem – sometimes I’d have guide support from friends or fellow cyclists ahead of me. Sometimes no support at all! I’d didn’t tell the organisers of my eyesight, as I felt I rode slowly and carefully.

“In the Niece race in 1988, I took a guide as there were 45 hairpins on the course. It was such a big one I declared my hand and explained my eye condition to the organisers,” James recalls.

Surprise, surprise, the organisers were not impressed with the idea of a registered blind cyclist in the middle of their race pack.

“We can’t let you race”, they said. “We’re worried as 20 riders ended up in hospital last year. With only 5pc sight there’s a fair chance you’ll be one of these this year.”

James, determined champion that he is, wasn’t about to put his equipment in the bike shed and head home.

“After several meetings and negotiations. they agreed to come and see me cycle. They agreed it was safe enough for me to race”.

When summer was over it was time for the ski slopes. It was here that James managed to compete in two more Paralympic Games: the winter games of 1988 in Innsbruck and the 1992 Tignes-Albertville Games. His team and individual cross country skiing gave him very credible top 5 placing. Indeed in the World Winter Championships for the Blind in Sweden in 1986 James won 3 bronze medals.

Paralympics now over, as he then thought, James married and returned to Ireland to rear a family, James has two children Alice, 17, and Pete, 16. Now at home James built and ran a hotel in in Portaferry, Co. Down.

By 2000 the sports bug was back with James and off to the swimming pool he went. Ultimately, he competed in the Ulster Masters.

Indeed so well was the swimming going that James recalls ringing up Swim Ireland to see if his standard was such to allow him compete in major events.

“They told me my 400m freestyle time qualified me for the Beijing Paralympic Games. I did not pursue it any further” recalls James.

The lead in to the Beijing Paralympics coincided with James settling into his new home in Storehouse, Gloucestershire. The multi talented James is now a self employed software engineer. In his spare time, away from sport, he will turn his hand to after dinner and motivational speaking as well as visiting schools (he went to Warwick University to study teaching and was a practising teacher at one stage).

The hunger for competition was building. “My fitness was back and I took to cycling two years ago,” says James. “My first call was to Denis Twoomey (the Paralympics Ireland cycling manager) as I perceived the Irish setup was more appropriate and welcoming to me”.

James had made good friends with Irish Para cyclists and had lost a little touch with the Great Britain team, due to living in Ireland for most of the previous 20 years.

Denis Twoomey matched James up with Irish ace cyclist Damien Shaw and they are already a champion combination.

“Only problem”, James musses, “we’ve only got to meet up recently and we’ve only cycled together on two training events on the left hand side of the road, All of the rest of our cycling was on the right hand side in Portugal, Canary Islands and when we won silver at the World Championships in LA.”

Whatever side of the street James Brown cycles, 30 years after his international debut, you can be sure he’s heading in one direction: the streets of London.



Fri 16 March 12

Damien Shaw Wonder Tandem Cyclist

Meet the Man who Guides James Brown

Tandem teamwork takes two: the pilot and stoker.

To reach Irish Paralympic team standards the piolot is usually an ace racer from Cycling Ireland; the stoker an ace athlete from the visually impaired community who may have partial or no eyesignt.

Unlike the pilot the stoker will not be able to train or race unaccompanied. Thereore, the stoker usually gains supreme fitness through massive gymn wokr from weights to treadmill to, yes, gymn cycling.

In the case of the current crop of Irish Paralympian stokers there is a huge background in top international track and field.

so, when the ultra fit pilots and stokers get together for training sessions and races the fusion is electric. Sparks and spokes fly.

Thanks to Paralympics Ireland here’s the wonderful story of how one pilot, Damien Shaw, emerged from the pack

Check out this link from Irish Cycling News:
www.irishcycling.com/publish/news/art_6103.shtml



Mon 13 February 12

A Sensational Weekend in Irish Tandem Cycling

Denis Twooemy reports on the final day of the World Track Paracycling Championships in LA

The Irish spirit really shined through on todays last day of the 2012 UCI Paracycling Track World Championships in Carson L.A. In this morning’s Sprint qualification round Irish Pursuit World Champions set a new Irish Record of 12.259 to leave them in 4th place and secured the last available place in this afternoon’s Match Sprint finals.

Male tandem pairing of Andrew Fitzgerald and Con Collis put in a good performance to record a time of 11.631 which left them in 17th place.

The Irish Team Sprint squad of Colin Lynch, Enda Smyth and Cathal Miller finished just outside the top 10 taking 11th place in a New Irish Record time of 56.840.

In this afternoon’s Tandem Sprint Semi- finals the Irish girls were drawn against favourites GB in the first two heats. Catherine and Fran rode very shrewdly but the experience of the British duo shone through and they took both heats.

In the other Semi-final Australia beat Germany which meant we were going to have to beat Germany in the best of 3 heats to secure the Bronze Medal.

Tactics were agreed with Coach Brian Nugent and the plan was to try and lead out and then maintain pressure on the straights to prevent them passing. This worked a treat and in spite of constant pressure the Germans were unable to come around the girls and we had the first heat in the bag.

Similar tactics were employed in the second heat and by the time the bell was sounded we had broken the Germans and pulled away to win comfortably. A big surprise for Ireland to win a Sprint Medal but great credit to the guts and determination of the two girls to pull another medal out the bag and crown the best ever Track World Championships performance by any Irish Squad where Ireland finished 7th in the medal tally out of 31 countries.

We will know in about 2 weeks what our final Country Ranking Point total accumulation for London Paralympic Games qualification will be, but the tremendous performances by all the squad will surely mean that we will surpass our target and secure 4 male slots and 2 female slots. We can certainly be confident of bringing home Ireland’s first ever cycling medals from the Paralympic Games when you take into consideration that we now 5 current World Championship titles and one silver and two bronze World Championship finishers. I think any sport in Ireland will be hard pushed to match that. So great praise to the athletes, support staff, our Paracycling sponsors An Post and Focus Consulting and other supporters, the Irish Sports Council, Cycling Ireland and Paralympics Ireland. I hope, like me, you are all very proud of the level we have reached in a relatively short number of years.

Onwards and Upwards!!

Denis Toomey

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