Event history

The event evolved out of a ride that was organised by Alan Kay to raise money for Tockwith Youth Club in 1983. Forty cyclists, mainly members of the youth club and their parents, rode from Tockwith to Scarborough. Alan rode with them and I followed in a van with food, water and spares. This was somehow very prophetic, as it happened, and set the scene for the future in more ways than one.

The following year we decided to make it an open event, and the Great Yorkshire Bike Ride, as we know it, was born. 284 riders took part, we raised £8,900 for charity and everyone loved it. The event carried on like this for another five years, getting bigger and bigger. Alan always rode the event while I worked out how many plastic cups we needed, where to get vans from, how to get the printing done, and how to get whatever from wherever to where it was needed.

The ride out-grew the seafront site in Scarborough, and following Alan’s departure to South Wales, I moved the finish to it’s new home in Filey and let it grow to its present notional limit of 1,500, later 2,000, riders. It’s success is now legendary. We attract riders of all ages and abilities. To some it is an easy fun thrash to the coast, to others, who have never ridden so far and so long, it is the equivalent of climbing Everest. The atmosphere on the day is electric. The entrants have taken this event to their hearts and every year we are vastly oversubscribed. The riders and their supporters continue to do fantastic work with the sponsorship money and it keeps rolling in. From that £8,900 in 1984 we advanced to the current record total, set in 2011, of £151,635. Our average for the last five years is over £136k and we have raised nearly £1.28m of the overall total in the last 10 years.