Frank Ryan is the founder and owner of Saoirse Cycle Tours, created to showcase the best that Waterford and the South-East has to offer a visitor to our county, delivered in a memorable and entertaining manner by friendly and enthusiastic guides.

Despite a lifelong love of cycling, Frank arrived late to the world of self-employment, when transforming his pastime into a commercial enterprise, “A career in financial services has fine-tuned my customer service skills and given me a love of meeting people and building lasting relationships. With the winds of change blowing through the banking world, I decided on a career change, leaving the air conditioned office behind for new horizons.

“Growth in the popularity of cycling as a leisure activity spurred me on to identify a business opportunity to combine my love of cycling with the skills I acquired during my professional life, thus, Saoirse Cycling Tours was born.”

Saoirse Cycling Tours make the experience easy by providing a range of scheduled and bespoke tours led by entertaining and informative guides. All tours can be tailor made to suit your personal requirements. The bikes are new and are regularly maintained by a qualified bicycle mechanic.

Coming from the corporate world and the safety blanket of a large corporate support system to look after his career development and training needs Frank knew he’d have to look elsewhere for assistance when setting up his own business. 

“Little did I know that similar supports exist for anyone researching a business idea. A quick trawl online led me into the embrace of Waterford Local Enterprise Office, who provide a broad range of training courses and one to one mentorship for the aspiring entrepreneur.

“Their courses are short, concise and very well presented with the aim of imparting maximum knowledge with minimum impact on your business day and personal commitments. They are a combination in-person gatherings and online meetings. They are scheduled to run at times that suit the participants from mornings, through lunchtimes and into the early evening.

“As you’re meeting fellow start-ups and existing business owners the LEO get togethers provide priceless networking opportunities and a platform for knowledge transfers between participants.”

Image is compliments of Celtic Roots

The Local Enterprise Office Waterford serves as a ‘first stop shop’ to provide strategic, administrative, technical and financial support and services to start, grow and develop micro and small business in Waterford.

Frank certainly endorses their training courses for a business at any stage of growth, “Most LEO training and networking courses are either free or a have a nominal charge. You only have to do a small amount of research to realise that you would pay significantly more for the training if you sourced it commercially.

“The staff in the Local Enterprise Office are friendly, knowledgeable and supportive and constantly innovating by adjusting their course schedule to cater for emerging trends and the evolving training needs of their clients.” 

The future looks promising for Saoirse Cycle Tours, as they have plans to expand into other areas too, “As much as we’re fans of cycling, we realise there are people who would like to explore Waterford city but may not have the confidence to take a bike tour. We are working on a Saoirse Walking tour for the colder months which will encapsulate elements of our cycling tour and the obligatory coffee stop.”

So, we’re sure Frank won’t be a stranger to the Local Enterprise Office over the coming years.

Local Enterprise Office Waterford is here to help you start a business, expand an existing business or reach new markets. It provides advice, information and supports in starting up or growing your business as part of a network of 31 Local Enterprise Offices across Ireland. 

Contact your Local Enterprise Office Waterford for their latest training programmes and events schedule on www.localenterprise.ie/Waterford or email info@leo.waterfordcouncil.ie for access to all their training support information.

Saoirse Cycle Tours can be found at www.saoirsecyclingtours.ie