Lord Mayor Andrew Montague rides a bicycle

Andrew Montague, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Ireland, included Bike Party in his Sister City visit to San Jose over the weekend.

Andrew Montague, Lord Mayor Dublin Ireland

He wore the Amgen Tour of California jersey presented to him by San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed on Saturday. Although Reed didn’t show up for the ride, a few other city dignitaries and officials did, including San Jose District 8 councilwoman Rose Herrera with her husband and pet dog; Herrera’s chief of staff Mary Anne Groen; San Jose Fire Chief Willie McDonald; Economic Development Director Kim Walesh; and San Jose bike program coordinator John Brazil.


Carlos and the Lord Mayor

250 people joined Lord Mayor Montague for the ride at City Hall and treated him like royalty. He smiled through the ride around the edges of downtown, with finishing laps around Cesar Chavez Park, and afterwards he was like a kid in a candy store as the Bike Party riders let Montague try their home welded chopper bikes, custom made recumbents, the various cargo bikes and other bits and pieces of American-style bike culture. He even watched Autonomous San Jose’s crazy bike joust. He told the gathered crowd he plans to start a Dublin Bike Party after his return home later this week.


Group Photo

Shortly after he was elected to the Dublin City Council in 2004, Montague proposed a bike share system which was launched in 2009 as Dublin Bikes. The wildly successful Dublin Bikes scheme has 450 bikes distributed at 40 locations around the city.

Below is the ride slideshow. Of course it looks way better embiggened to full screen. Clicking through the thumbnails is also available. These photos are free to for you to use, but attribution to Richard Masoner and link to Cyclelicious is required (where possible / appropriate). Thank you to Carlos, Ian and the awesome Bike Party BIRDs for making this happen. Thanks for looking and enjoy!



2 Comments

  1. I felt like such a pushy American getting my picture with him, but I’m so glad I did. That’s definitely something to write home about.

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