It has been just over a week now since the absolutely epic 2021 Ride 4 Life. which saw an 8 strong team of cyclists smash through a 201.2 mile route from Doncaster to the countries capital, and all you amazing people smash through the £5000 fundraising target we set.
At the climax of the ride the total stood at just under £13.5k and I can now reveal that the total has since climbed even higher to a gigantic…
*Drumroll*
£15,412.41
With Gift Aid included that’s almost £18,000 raised for The Samaritans which is just unbelievable.
In the grand scheme of things I played a relatively small part in the Ride, and I can’t tell you how humbled I am by the generosity that has been shown and the amount that has been raised, so I can only imagine that feeling is reflected even more strongly by those who put in the real effort and did the ride itself.
That total isn’t set in stone either, the donations page is still open for business so if you would like to throw a few quid in there too you can do so by heading to the Virgin Money Giving page.
So after such an exciting (and gruelling for those on bikes) day the big question on everyone’s lips was…
What Comes Next?
Well, in the immediate aftermath there were celebrations, plenty of drinks (I saw at least 3 people with a bottle in each hand, which I believe is called a ‘Donny Double’ – another little regional fact for you!) a lot of smiles and I think a celebratory curry, although by that point I’d avoided what looked to be the start of a fight, grabbed a takeaway and squirreled myself away in the hotel room for the night.
A Bank Holiday weekend provided much-needed respite for the riders, but what about longer-term?
What about… The Ride4Life 2022?
Well, this was a question I asked some of the organisers shortly after they completed this year’s ride, and although some didn’t feel ready to comment, others did have a few ideas!
The ‘Lost’ Interviews
Hopefully during this year’s ride you had time to read a couple of my updates, and perhaps even learned a few things about the places our cyclists visited.
Mostly it covered off how just about every tiny village in the UK somehow made it into the Doomsday Book, but there were a few other morsels of information in there too, and I have to admit even I learned a thing or two while I was writing them up.
The biggest lesson I learned during that fateful Friday though, was undoubtedly this; You get what you pay for.
Those of you who saw the £11 Breakfast I received in Kings Cross Station might be thinking ‘you must have got that wrong’, because in that instance I certainly DIDN’T get what I paid for, but no you read it correctly.
You see prior to the ride I decided to purchase a microphone in order to conduct ‘Finish Line’ interviews, and having accidentally ordered one that would have looked more at home in a Polly Pocket set, I settled on a reasonably cheap one on eBay, which would be winging it’s way to me from China.
When it arrived it certainly looked the part and I was impressed. I tested it out in my office and all seemed fine.
My biggest mistake though, was not testing it out in Leadenhall Market.
Having conducted half a dozen interviews I went to listen to one back… and it hadn’t recorded anything.
It literally hadn’t worked, all the audio that had been recorded came from the microphone on my phone, which had been safely tucked away in my pocket.
So as the title of this section implies, I thought the interviews had been lost.
However… when I got back to the hotel I had a closer listen, and between the audio on the video footage, and what little has been picked up by my phone, I think I have enough to at least subtitle them!
So watch this space, as they should be coming very soon.
Going Forward
Although planning hasn’t officially begun for the 2022 Ride just yet, we would like to start using this website in a more pro-active way.
We have everything in place now to build a hub of information, updates and personal diary style blogs for all the riders, and the plan is to utilise it all even more in the build to next year’s ride.
So be sure to bookmark us, and don’t be a stranger! You can always like the posts we put on (including this one!) and you can comment on them too and let us know what you’re thinking!
All that’s left for me to say is a huge ‘THANK YOU’!
For all the donations, for all the moral support, for reading the updates and for all the kind comments, they are all massively appreciated!
– Jay