Finally! Our new website is just about ready for launch. A few more tweeks and tests and we'll be launching at the end of this week (if you can read this I guess it means we're LIVE!). It's been quite a journey, this website - one which started in March of this year, a road full of pitfalls (not least my rudimentary understanding of the world of website design and programming and the like), challenges and adventures in techhie stuff. As someone who always thought he was on top of the latest technology I have discovered, much to my utter horror, I am actually a Luddite. An eight week project was extended to twelve weeks, then to sixteen weeks and then completely restarted from scratch during the summer! We have go to the point now where both Project Manager and Designer are happy. I hope you enjoy the site and it proves informative as well as useful. I'd love to hear from you - please let me know what you think!
When I set up the company it was my desire to offer something unique and authentic to everyone who would be good enough to come on tour with us. I wanted to offer a professional top-of-the-line service in a very laid back and relaxed setting at a very affordable price. 2011 has been a brilliant first full year and I want to thank all my guests who took a punt on a small company especially when there are so many other great outfits in the market. Most of our clients were word of mouth referrals from previous guests - it is hugely encouraging to me to know that my guests think I'm doing this well enough to then recommend Fresh Eire Adventures to their friends and colleagues - THANK YOU. It's not my ambition to compete with the big boys but rather offer the discerning traveller an option to go with something a little more intimate, a tour for travellers designed by travellers.
I hope to use this blog as an opportunity to talk, not only about whats going on with the company, but also about what's going on in the world of cycling, vacations, gastronomy...those of you who know me well will probably be unsurprised if I start talking politics, society, the Arts - I'll do my best to keep my opinionated pieces brief.
2011 was a very busy year - in the last twelve months I took over forty flights, sailed on 10 ferries, rode somewhere in the region of 5000 miles, drove another 16,000 miles...this is where the quantification ends - I don't want to think about how many bottles of wine, how many gourmet dinners, how many kilos of Epoisses etc! It has all paid off and I'm truly thankful for the amazing journey I now find myself on; working for myself, building a business up from the ground and doing it in a way that I can be proud of. I absolutely LOVE what I do and I'm honoured that my guests continue to place their faith in me to arrange their precious vacation time for them. I ride my bike in beautiful places, meet wonderful interesting people, eat amazing food, drink outstanding wine and soak up everything life offers in this world - whats not to love about that? I am lucky.
2012 is going to be a very exciting year. We have lots of FIRSTs planned: Our Ireland Geneaology tour, our Gastonomy & Literature tour of Dublin (UNESCO City of Literature), our Bergamo & Lake Como tour in Italy, our revised New Zealand tour and the option to combine back to back tours of New Zealand and Western Australia to maximise your vacation time. In late January I will be in Boston working with a client on their Ireland tour programmes, in early February I will be in New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Chicago and Denver meeting with previous clients and their friends. At the end of April I will be on a bike trip of Sardinia led by Italian supremo Mario Cipollini. In May we'll be taking delivery of our brand new fleet of Trek hybrids. We have an ever expanding family here at Fresh Eire Adventures and we'll be adding to it early in the new year - we're hiring a new Administrator who will manage the office. As always we're keen to identify the very best Guides in the business so if you think you're right for Fresh Eire Adventures plese drop us a line.
But first I'll be taking a vacation over the holidays - a wee biking and hiking trip of the Canary Islands.
Thank you for your words of encouragement, your support, positive vibes, jokes, photos, emails, cards, gifts, and for your much appreciated business. Special thanks to Ben Young for the use of his painting "Cycling in the Berkeley Hills" as the inspiration for our logo, for the two Designers from Russia who designed the logo at Vanilla Studio, to Luka Bloom for the music (which I'll get around to using soon), and to Paul at MediaLab in Galway who did a great job on the site. I hope to see you on a Fresh Eire Adventures saddle in 2012. Join me for a Guinness - it is 'good for you' after all.
Happy holidays to you and yours; may 2012 be a fantastic year for you all.
Pedal on!
- Padraic.
