 There's a lot of bicycles out at Glen Bay National Park as well and they're there courtesy of Grass Roots, the bike hire company, and there's a new addition which will be launched tomorrow and it is a mountain trike, MT, it's an e-push mountain trike, electrically assisted wheelchair essentially and it will be provided free of charge whenever Grass Roots is open there and Maria Giles is manager of Grass Roots and joins me now in the studio, Maria, good to talk to you, explain about this mountain trike. Right, well it's essentially as a wheelchair and it's electrically assisted so it will need somebody to navigate as a second person. So when you say navigate I'm cycling behind or walking behind? Walking behind so they'll be pushing it from behind and it has like a throttle or a, we button on at your press that can make it, the battery starts then. So that will help you if you're going over rough ground or up hills and stuff like that? That's exactly it, because we know ourselves a walk out the castle has hills and it's you know bumpy and all the rest so it'll just make it a leisurely walk rather than somebody with a conventional wheelchair trying to push out that 3.5k out as far as the castle or the nature trail or whatever it may be. Yeah because there's a couple of hills there and it'll be tight going and just with a regular push wheelchair. Yeah yeah and now we've been testing the wheelchair ourselves and it's really light and it has suspension and even to bring it over a cattle grid you would feel more in your car than you would with the wheelchair itself like and it's really easy to steer. So it's suitable for sort of rougher terrain but not too rough? Not too rough, no. Okay but it makes certain areas now accessible for those in a wheelchair. I mean you know especially if you're in a push wheelchair so now this is just you know opening up the great outdoors for you know for even just something as straightforward as going from the car park over to the castle and back. Exactly yeah and you know it was really overwhelming this week to talk to some of the different families or organisations or like some barendets, some barendets are very excited about it and schools and that that you know if they have a child in the class or in their family with the mobility issue that they won't have to leave them behind or they won't have to let the rest of the kids walk out and put this child with the disability on the bus that they can actually include them so that's the whole idea is that you know to make it inclusive to make you know visiting the park that you know everybody can enjoy the same experience I suppose. Yeah and the controls are they you know they're not off-putting they're easy. Oh they're very very very easy. Okay there's five different settings on it there's not really much difference the five settings it's it's the top speed will go with 3.5 miles on earth so it's not and you just push a button basically to move it there's two brakes either side so it's really really easy. All right you're part of uncraving the community enterprise centre and a social enterprise. A social enterprise yes so we're non-profit. The aim of something like a social enterprise is to provide a service or something within a community and it provides employment and it's you know we get government funding we get grants aid as well and and it's just to enrich the lives of the local people and if anybody come into the community or wishing to use the service that you know it's it's accessible to all. So if somebody is out to Glen Bay or if you have you know friends or relatives that are visiting you want to go out and hire the bikes any profits that are made from grassroots go back into the enterprise. Go back into grassroots or else if it's a surplus then because you have both bikes and everything and employ because we employ people during the summer extra people during the summer and everything and then it's pumped back into the community centre itself. And you have I mean this is a new departure and this is something new that's been launched tomorrow but you've got a lot of like regular bikes and regular bikes and electric bikes yes I'd say electric bikes are more and more popular now. Those yeah those those those are really popular within our business self and we also have ability bikes as well which are bikes for people with mobility issues as well. There's no battery or anything range or anything in these they're three wheels. Okay. So if you found that you know using an ordinary bike with the two wheels was too much we have the three wheel ones which we can supply in the park as well. All right very handy as well. Yeah yeah and we also we have Eugene there who is a cycle reconstructor which is safe cycling and he supplies that within the schools. We actually a garden school this morning he was out with and they use one of the smaller ability bikes so one of the children was on their school can take part in the cycling classes. Oh brilliant. You know yeah included. Included. Included definitely that's what it's all about and he also does classes through the HSE and the CI hub three days a week where he teaches cycling to people with intellectual physical disabilities and there's some members of his classes that would never have attempted to use a bike and now can independently use a bike. You know it's wonderful. Yeah and it's empowerment and it's great for confidence. Fantastic. Of course. Get up and you know that moment that we've all experienced at the moment that you take off on a bike is just great. Yeah. Yeah. And for kids as well and at Glen Bay I often see a lot of you know small kids been like told behind bikes. Yes. You offer that as well. We offer that as well and those actually are quite good for like if you have a small enough child that has you know mobility issues as well they can be put into the the we tug along as well tag along as well and so yeah so it's great for you know hold the whole family can enjoy the experience in Glen Bay of you know cycling about and exploring it. Exploring it is right and whether you go to the castle and back or go beyond the castle you know the bikes are there at the car park for everything to use and and it's gone from strength grassroots it's gone from strength to strength hasn't it. It has. It has. We're around 10 years and so yeah we have to say I'm only what I'm a year myself but in fairness they have a very good name out there and as I say their their main focus is supplying the service. We're not we're not driven by figures or you know that's you know that's part of it like and and this this particular this electrically assisted wheelchair just to stress that's available free that's free of charge yeah all they have to do is make sure they book with us because we'd hit for somebody to land in the park and it'd be out and they were you know wanting to use it. They we are going to have a unit in place where it will be kept in the park but at the minute we're waiting for that unit to be installed so it'll be it's been stored at the community centre at the minute and so just to book and make sure that we have we have we have that there's access to it and it's been brought out to the park. So like everybody else you're looking for you're hoping for better weather and a busy season. That's the one thing the grassroots praise very hard for is that yeah we were very reliant on the weather. Because when the song comes out in the weather it's better bigger crowds. Yeah exactly. Exactly okay so it's officially being launched tomorrow and contact grassroots for more information or if you do want to available make sure that you call ahead and and book to avoid disappointment. Yes. All right great thank you. Thank you very much.