Leasedrive raises record £17,000 in 'Big Four Charity Bike Ride'

Big Four Charity Bike Ride Team

Leasedrive, the UK’s largest independent privately-owned vehicle management group, has broken all its fund-raising records with the amount raised in its latest organised charity event. A total of £16,839 has been secured by its 17 riders and through corporate sponsorship in the recent 400-mile, four-day, four-country, ‘Big Four Charity Bike Ride’. The amount will go to four charities – Leonard Cheshire Disability, Macmillan Cancer Support, Marie Curie Cancer Care and Mencap. The amount raised for Macmillan was approximately £6,142.

The amount raised beat the previous record of £16,472 for Marie Curie Cancer Care in 2008 in the 250-mile London to Paris charity bike ride. In 2010, Leasedrive secured £14,652 for Marie Curie Cancer Care and the RNLI in a 270-mile charity bike ride between Wokingham and Le Mans.

Roddy Graham, commercial director at Leasedrive, said: 'In the current economic climate, our original target was a conservative £10,000. This figure was attained two days before the ride and, thanks to the exploits of our 17 riders who had to contend with torrential rain and high winds during the 400-mile ride in addition to 15 categorised climbs on the final day, it has been well and truly surpassed! This is a fantastic achievement and a feather in all the riders’ helmets! Thanks also go to the generous support of our corporate sponsors and all private supporters.'

The 400-mile epic ride crossed southern England, northern France, Belgium and Luxembourg. Day one started from Leasedrive’s headquarters in Wokingham on June 21 in damp conditions and ended in rain 102 miles later in Folkestone. Day two saw torrential rain and high cross-winds between Calais and Roubaix, destination of the classic ‘hell of the North’ Paris-Roubaix race, and finished on a famous 450m stretch of cobbles. The longest day from Roubaix to Dinant saw 111 miles covered while the final day through the Ardennes saw the team battling further high winds and torrential rain at the highest point of the ride. It was 17 very cold and wet riders that made it to the capital city of Luxembourg late in the afternoon on June 24.

Corporate sponsors backing the ride were the AA; Avis; Capita; Brunel Ford (Bristol); Enterprise Rent A Car UK; FMG; GL Print; Hughes Group (Beaconsfield); Inchcape Retail (Colchester); Kwik-Fit Fleet; SMH Fleet Solutions; Toyota (GB) PLC (Epsom); and Vines Group BMW & MINI (Crawley). Leasedrive covered the Eurotunnel return fares, fuel, support van and cycle shirt top costs, as well as underwriting its participating employees’ time-off. 

For more information on the Big Four Charity Bike Ride, visit: http://bikeride.leasedrive.co|