Bike Ride 2016

755 km, 5 Cities, 1 Day

2nd June 2016

The city ride across counties…

Bike Ride 2016 had more riders than the usual trio of Tola Obembe, Essay Folami and Abiola Owoaje. This year, we were joined by Tony Dia (from Lagos, Nigeria), Kene Ibezi (from Croydon, UK) and Dr Dokun Olayinka (from Manchester, UK). The addition of 3 very enthusiastic riders made the event even more special.

The ride kicked off on 2nd of June 2016 at Latimer Place, Chesham in unusually cold weather for that time of the year. We set forth at 8:30am, slightly behind schedule. Braving the chill, we headed towards our first stop in Hackney, London.

The ride went smoothly as we rode against the rush hour traffic via the M25, that was until we entered London where we had to contend with the frequent traffic light stops. We soon arrived at our first stop in Hackney at 11:45am and had a quick breakfast at a nearby cafe.

We were soon on our way again heading towards Woolwich with Kene in the lead. We meandered our way through London, taking in the tourist sights of Liverpool Street and the east end of London, going past London Bridge before heading towards the Black Wall Tunnel. The tunnel was originally opened as a single bore in 1897 by the then Prince of Wales, as a major transport project to improve commerce and trade in London's East End, and supported a mix of foot, cycle, horse-drawn and vehicular traffic. It remains the easternmost free fixed road crossing of the Thames and probably the longest tunnel in UK.

We arrived at our scheduled second stop at Woolwich by noon. Our stay was very brief because we were still behind schedule for our rendezvous with Dr Dokun who will be joining us in Keele, Staffordshire. The route took us back through the Black Wall Tunnel again before heading northbound going past the London Olympic Village, towards the M11.

Just as we approached Junction 6 on M11, Tola's bike started playing up. It lost speed suddenly before finally grinding to a halt. Being the last bike in the group, the rest of the riders had gone about a mile before Abiola noticed Tola was no longer in his rear view mirror. A quick call to Tola confirmed the breakdown, so he had to turn round to go back and join him. It turned out the bike had developed a mechanical failure with the clutch, which unfortunately meant the end of the ride for Tola.

The decision was for Kene to complete the rendezvous with Dr Dokun and finish the ride with him. Abiola waited with Tola and Essay for the recovery vehicle to take the faulty bike back to London. They then went on to Hatfield, the last stop on the route to wait for Kene who was making his way back on the M1.

The Bike Ride didn't quite end up as planned, but we managed to reach all cities, albeit not altogether in one stretch. We thank all those who encouraged us, who supported us and who donated towards our fundraising effort in support of Cerebral Palsy Centre, Lagos. There's still time to send in your donations, just click on the button below for more information.

Your donation will directly impact these children in more ways than we can ever imagine.

 

Bike Ride 2016 Gallery