It’s that time of year again; National Bike Week is coming up in just over a week’s time running from the 12th to the 20th of June and culminating in the London to Brighton ride for the British Heart Foundation.
As usual there’s plenty happening all over the country, in fact, there are currently 1,109 events listed on the Bike Week website. Organisers are expecting around 150,000 people to take part in Bike Week in some way. And every one of those participants will be invited to enter a free prize draw to win an Exodus adventure holiday for two people worth £2,000; a pair of hand-built Brompton folding bikes; a limited-edition new Raleigh Chopper; or one of 50 pairs of tickets to the Cycle Show.
It’s not often that you get a pat on the back rather than an earful for being a cyclist, so the week’s a chance to revel in the warm fuzzy feeling of being part of the cycling community. And get free breakfasts. Bike2Work events running as part of Bike Week include free breakfasts for cycling commuters in some areas, so it might be worth checking your route for one.
Highlights of Bike Week
With so many events running it’s a little hard to pick out key events, but here are a few that caught our eye. If you’ve got other events that you think are worth a bit of trumpeting then post them up on the forum.
Various dates & locations: Bikeathon for Leukaemia Research – events all around the country.
June 11th – 13th – London to Paris Set off from London on Friday and pedal to Paris to arrive on the Monday! Bigfoot Bikes will carry your luggage and provide full support.
June 13th: BikeFest in the Square – open-air cycling festival in Trafalgar Square organised by Transport for London. All sorts of of cycling-related festivities including a ‘cycle art zone’ and the intriguing ‘Bollywood on Bikes’. The idea of this one is really to advertise cycling and its benefits to Londoners.
June 16th: Parliamentary Bike Ride sees MPs and Peers, led by transport minister Kim Howells, start off at Tate Modern museum for the annual parliamentary ride. They’ll be waved off in the morning by London Cycling Campaign group members who are converging for a ‘Cycling Commuters Breakfast’ in the Tate’s Level 2 Café.
June 19th: Great Yorkshire Bike Ride, Wetherby – 70-mile country roads ride as a charity fund raiser. Nearly 1,500 people took part last year and this year is the 21st anniversary of the event.
June 20th: London to Brighton. To round off the week there’s the annual London to Brighton ride for the British Heart Foundation.
