“The Nightrider is a fantastic event. It’s more than a cycle ride; it’s an experience that lets you see the capital city in a completely new light. Cycling over Tower Bridge at 1.30am and then back over Waterloo Bridge as the sun rose are memories that will stay with me forever and I would encourage anyone wanting something a little different to sign up!” Ian Leech.
I first mentioned Nightrider style events last year and they seem to have grown in popularity. This years event is sponsoring the Lymphoma Association who work on supporting lymphatic cancer patients and increasing awareness about lymphoma, the UK’s fifth most commonly diagnosed cancer.
This years ride takes place on the 11th of June and covers 100km around London at night. The ride begins and ends at Crystal Palace where riders are treated to a well earned breakfast.
The route takes you around London’s most famous landmarks such as Big Ben, the London Eye and the Buckingham Palace. It’s a fully supported and well sign posted.
All money raised will be donated to Lymphoma Association.
Please contact the fundraising team for an information pack 01296 619419 or email fundraising@lymphomas.org.uk.
So many great organised bike rides, so many charities I don’t care about.
Sorry to be blunt but I just wish someone would step up and organise some events that were just that, bike events! When did charities decide that cyclists would want to fund raise everytime we wanted a challenge or just a supported ride? I would be happy to cover these costs in the entrance fee.
I don’t want to have to ask my friends and family for money only for a percentage of it to go to the organisers to help pay for me to go riding.
Am I the only one that feels this way?
Why dont you organise an event where cyclists can just ride instead of raising money Evan. However, i think you might find that alot of cyclists might be busy raising money for a charity you might need in the future. I never thought i’d need help from a charity, but last year i did, and not from one but from a number of charities. I’ve just completed the nightride, and had to pay a fee of £25. Which i dont think is bad for the amount of organising that is involved, including refreshments, snacks, toilets and marshals along the route. I raised over £1000 for my chosen charity which my friends and family were only to happy to give to. So Evan if you want to go for a bike ride no one is stopping you.
Agree with Evan – this is madness. It will only lead to situations we have now in running where you cannot enter a marathon unless you give some mysterious charities over 1 K – everything is about fund rising, minimum contributions and more and more people are fed up becoming even a bit hostile towards charities…
Nightride seems to be a nice project though…
*Negative starting comment basically summed up with “Meh”*
*Some rambling about “boooo charity work”*
*Ending comment with some vague faint positivity. “Well I GUESS its a good idea…”*
Thanks Anon. Good input.
Of course I have nothing against charity work; I donate in my own way and work in frontline health care. My point still stands that I don’t want to have to raise money in order to do an organised bike ride.
Evan
Evan, Peter (et al)
There are plenty of cycling organisations which organise regular events that have nothing to do with charity that are easy to find if you can be even slightly arsed.
Here’s some so you don’t have to spend the effort using google.
http://www.ctc.org.uk/
http://www.lcc.org.uk/
http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/clubfinder
If these don’t suit, why not organise your own events, if you can manage it you apatheitc naysayer shites.
Thanks for the links. It looks like there are a couple of good challenge events on the CTC site and I have found a few other sportives around the place that would be worth a go.
I am not looking to organise my own event.. I want to pay to ride in someone else’s.
I did notice that fundraising option 2 for the nightrider requires that you pay the entire cost of entry and any money you raise goes to the charity. That sits ok with me.
Notice I didn’t resort to name-calling? Anyway, Andreas, I promise no more from me on this subject. If this charity is close to you then I hope the fundraising goes well 🙂
Evan
Thanks Evan – I always appreciate feedback on the things I post on the blog 🙂
Hey guys – know I’ve been hitting you with a lot of charity ride banter lately – this will be the last one for a while promise! Wanted to post it up as it’s a charity I closely follow.
night? why night?
No traffic (except those heading home from a night out) to get in the way?! Buildings are generally lit up too.
Hi,
If you don’t want to get involved with a charity and or not over keen on a 100k cycle ride then there is nothing stopping you from taking a small section of the ride any night, especially as we are heading out of winter and moving towards more pleasant night time temperatures.
John
I’ve signed up for this. I do agree with some of the comments above re: fundraising. But for this event you have two options:
Fundraising Option 1 You raise £175 approx. minimum sponsorship
Fundraising Option 2 You pay £80 and raise as much as possible for your chosen charity
So it ain’t too bad.
I would like to know more of cycle clubs in London.. I saw a couple links above, I’ll check em out.
-Age
Take a look at Audax Uk who have been organising events from 50k upwards for 35 years in this country. No fund raising and entry fees are well below those of ‘sportive events’ who have jumped on the bandwagon. Annual membership is cheap too.
What I would suggest is that everyone reading this sends their favourite charity say £100 then you can ignore these many events without feeling guilty. I do tend to agree with Ewan that cycling has been hijacked for charity.
If anyone on here wants to do a Lobdon night ride let’s pick a date and a route. Weather can’t be guaranteed but let’s use our collective knowledge and put one together exclusively for LC readers?
Being German and rather new to the UK I have to confess that I was surprised by the huge amount of charity events in this country. We don’t have this kind of sponsoring by family and frieds in Germany. I only understood how the idea works after a UK friend explained it to me.
However, I think it’s a good thing. Those charities are doing valuable work and they are struggeling to survive. Especially in the current economic environment with all those spending cuts.
If you fancy a non-charity night ride, however, there is an alternative: the “Friday Night Ride to the Coast”: Tonight the first one of 2011 is going to happen. I’ve been looking forward to this for months and just published a blog post on “The joy of night riding”
http://cyclingintelligence.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/the-joy-of-night-riding/
(Beware: Once a year there is a charity FNRttC. But noone is obliged to take part.
Cheers)
Olaf
Olaf,
Thanks for that insight. Shame it requires registration as I have relatives in Southend and Friday nights are not always available to me.
Having ridden through the night on quite a few occasions on the past, I can only concur with the delights of riding through the night. I recall one summer calling into a pub at 2am that was chucking out after a special party and asking for a drink of…water. It was so humid and having just done a long 1 in 20 hill, they happily gave me the water. They wanted to feed and offer me beer too, but that would have slowed me and I had another 40 miles to go! Clearly thought me to be mad!
Good to see there are Bromptons going too!
Read the fine print of any charity ride. The organisers in this case pocket over £100 per rider. Not sure how many riders but if they get 500 to sign up then that is at least £50,000 income. Having organised Audax rides since the 1980’s I am aware that organisers costs can be high but with income like that I think i might retire and live off the income from a couple of such events per year. Self funded (SF) is the only honest option when asking for sponsorship. If anyone asks you to sponsor one on the many London to Paris rides ask them if they are SF, otherwise the first £500-£1000 sponsorship goes to paying for their holiday!
Having done the ride last night, I have to say I was very disappointed.
Signage was quite bad especially on major junctions. No signage about distance done, and distance to water stops.
And no volunteers around the route at all.
Yes, might be nice to ride over London Bridge at night, however, riding in South London places such as Lewisham and close to Cristal Palace nearly on your own at 3am when all kind of weirdos are out, is not what I call safe.
Definitely not recommended in my opinion. Prefer to do other stuff for charity. And if the above is true that they get a lot of money per rider, then they should at least provide the right environment for riders to feel safe.
Having done things like the MoonWalk where you can’t walk more than half a street without seeing volunteers, this was very disappointing.