Bonkers about bikes

By Fiona McGarry

A LIFE LONG love affair began when a Vespa scooter caught the eye of a young Noel Connolly, as it sat in the window of Raftery’s of Mainguard Street, Galway, in the late 1970s.
“There weren’t too many bike shops around in those days,” the Athenry resident recalls. “Every day I’d pass by and look at the Vespa and say, 'One day, you’ll be mine’. Eventually, I bought it. That’s how it all began.”
According to Noel, scooters and motorbikes were an accessible means of transport at a time when the cost of car ownership was prohibitive.
“At that stage, I’d just done my Leaving Cert and had started in the RTC (Regional Technical College). I got a provisional licence when I was 17. The Vespa was my first mode of transport. Back then, a motorbike was much cheaper [than a car] and people got into them for that reason.”