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Video: Boris Bikes v Le Tour de France stage 1

Live the pain & the triumph as three daft blokes ride 204km in the Dales on 50lb bikes

One of the more endearingly daft things anyone’s done in the run up to the Tour de France’s visit to the UK has to be the attempt by Dave Barker, Dave Parkes and Andy Sloan to ride the route of stage one on Boris bikes and get them from London and back in under 24 hours.

Roadworks on the M1 scuppered their plans to get back to London in time to avoid a fine for keeping the Boris bikes for more than a day. They called the Barclays Cycle Hire operators, explained they were raising money for MacMillan Cancer Support and begged a bit and were excused the fine.

They’ve now recovered enough to edit together the video footage of the challenge — or rather, to persuade their mate Brian Becker to edit it. Grab a coffee and a biscuit and settle down as the trio and their helpers tell their story of over 200km around the Yorkshire Dales on a Boris Bike.

So far, the guys have raised just shy of their £3,000 target for MacMillan. You can pitch in via their Just Giving page.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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11 comments

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Shades | 9 years ago
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Just had a dreadful dream. In a fit of bravado I've signed up to do Stage 1 of the TdF on my folding bike and, as I'm getting the bike out, I look over to my road bike and cry, "No, No, why did I sign up to this!"  20

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eoin999 | 9 years ago
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Not to rain on your parade but I think you mean PPI (payment protection insurance), not PIP (personal independence payment) that is a state disability allowance...

Your rant also looks like a daily mail copy and paste effort and I suggest you do some research (after taking a massive chill pill) into the issues surrounding globalisation, macro economics, banking, western societal structures, capitalism etc etc.

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Lungsofa74yearold | 9 years ago
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Chapeau on the money raising front. But is it just me or are these stunts involving challenging rides on totally inappropriate machinery getting a bit tedious - what next, Everest by unicycle, the Amazon by penny farthing etc. etc.?!?!

Rich71 - fantastic rant by the way - quality!  41

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michophull | 9 years ago
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Well I for one enjoyed the little film and I think that both Barclays and Boris are doing a great job.  41

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700c | 9 years ago
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Blimey! (the comment, not the amazing feat of riding)

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Rich71 | 9 years ago
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Its a pity we have to engage in these pathetic stunts to raise money for charities like the cancer trust etc
Im sure it wouldnt be beyond the compassion of Barclays to donate a couple of thousand for this hideous free publicity but an institution that practices fraud,embezzlement and theft on a global scale i dont suppose you can expect a great deal of philanthropy
Far from being abit of a laugh these stupid stunts legitimizes the very real evil corruption of Bozo the mayor and his criminial pals at Barclays and the city who have been convicted of misselling PIP,fixing libor rates,and every other stinking fiscal nefarious fraud you can imagine causing misery to millions
Why cannot barclays donate a percentage of the billions they steal in bonus payments to cancer support?
They will never do it because they are nothing but criminal scum so stop giving the scum this free idiotic publicity and dump their dirty lumpen dangerous 'bikes' in the canal where they belong

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7thGalaxy replied to Rich71 | 9 years ago
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I prescribe a gin and tonic, and a break somewhere nice.

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Tjuice replied to Rich71 | 9 years ago
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Rich71 wrote:

[Barclays] institution that practices fraud,embezzlement and theft on a global scale i dont suppose you can expect a great deal of philanthropy

You may have much better insight than I do (I have no particular connection with Barclays), and I am completely open to the possibility that I am mistaken, but the above sounds a little harsh, in light of this:

http://www.barclays.com/citizenship/supporting-communities.html

Yes, I accept it is not cancer, but it feels like philanthropy in an area where this organisation feels it has the skills to offer more than simply money.

"We are investing £250m and our employees’ time and expertise to help improve the enterprise, employability and financial skills of disadvantaged young people around the world"

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Rich71 replied to Tjuice | 9 years ago
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Yes, I accept it is not cancer, but it feels like philanthropy in an area where this organisation feels it has the skills to offer more than simply money.

"We are investing £250m and our employees’ time and expertise to help improve the enterprise, employability and financial skills of disadvantaged young people around the world"[/quote]

That utter PR bullshit from those criminals would be funny if it wasnt so utterley cynical and disgusting
250 million? ha ha,compared with last years bonus pool of 2.4 billion to a few hundred embezzlers within that bent criminal institution on top of the 290 million fine they had to pay for 'misselling PPI'

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/apr/24/barclays-agm-protests-sh...

I wouldnt extend much sympathy to Barclays or any of these cretinous filthy embezzling institutions,they couldnt give a shit if we live or die,just keep us living in a perpetual state of fear and in penury and in threat of losing our homes whilst they squirrel away stolen money into complexed offshore havens and trust funds
To hell with Barclays and this stupid dumb ill thought out stunt,why couldnt they do the course on Choppers?why give publicity to scum who couldnt give a shit about Cancer sufferers
if you want to swallow the blurb about investing 250 million(peanuts) into disadvantaged young people 'around the world' ha ha,thats your perogative,i can tell you now its bullshit PR BS to get them off the hook for their heinous crimes,they should all be facing lengthy prison sentences for what they hve done
its sickness utter sickness

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7thGalaxy replied to Rich71 | 9 years ago
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You forgot to mention the lizard men running the world.

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drfabulous0 replied to Rich71 | 9 years ago
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Rich71 wrote:

Its a pity we have to engage in these pathetic stunts to raise money for charities like the cancer trust etc

I totally disagree, I have no money to give to charity, but I do have time for stupid stunts to raise money from those that do.

Quote:

misselling PIP

I think you meant misspelling. Certainly you have the Ps in the wrong place.

You know Barclays may be scum but they are nothing next to Monsanto, Google the bastards.

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