Boris Bike 24 Hour 100 mile Charity Cycle

[paddybishop]

On September 2nd, two teams will be attempting to cycle one of the new 23kg Boris Bikes 100miles across London, stopping off and swapping their bike at every single docking station along the way. Check out http://findmeachallenge.com/24hrbikehirechallenge.htm to see this ridiculous route, and find out more details about the ride. Given that there are approximately 350 docking stations that are operational in London, and that we will be doing the challenge with a 24hour key, we will have approximately 4 minutes to get between each station if we complete the challenge over 24 hours. Yes... not that easy really!!!

Transport for London have already contacted us to provide their support and have provided us with some tips for the day - they will be confirming which docking stations are and aren't operational a couple of days before the challenge. Let us know if you can think of any other tips to take on board.

We are raising money for Frank Water projects, a fantastic charity who work tirelessly to help provide clean and safe drinking water to communities in India, who otherwise would suffer from lack of access to this most basic of necessities - please visit our www.justgiving.com/bikelondon page for more information - any donations much appreciated. If you can't support us financially, perhaps you can help by spreading the word - find us on Facebook and Twitter. Alternatively, come out on the day, and show your support!! We'll be keeping everyone posted as to where we are throughout the day - we're hoping Boris will be joining us for a leg as well ;-)

Thanks for all your support!

 

[gaz]

I hope they know it won't be free.

 

[paddybishop]

TFL have confirmed that as long as we pause for 5 minutes every 30 mins, then we shouldn't incur any charges at all. The aim is not to incur a single hire charge!!

 

[LindsayW]

how exactly are you intending to do this challenge . You are 2 teams right ? does that mean one team takes on half the stations and the others the rest ? will each team only have to cover 175 stations or do both teams cover all stations , how many people per team ? won't you have to wait 5 mins at each station before you can re-hire the bike or take a new one ? what time of day are you starting ?

cheers
lindsay

 

[paddybishop]

We are intending to do all 350 docking stations (or at least as many as we can) in the 24 hours... Given the 5 minute rule, as you point out, we're going to be doing it on 2 keys each, which will still mean a bit of waiting around, but will allow us to do it, if we take on average 3.5 minutes to cycle between each docking station - if you want to see a very geeky post on how we worked out how long we'll have to get between stations in order to complete it in 24 hours, check out borisbikes!! As with most challenges, particularly this one (which as far as we know hasn't been done before), we have no idea whether its possible or not!!! Its certainly not going to be easy.

There are 2 teams doing it (2 people in one team, 3 in the other) - we have worked out the full route (a loop), which is posted on findmeachallenge.com, and will be confirming our start location and time next week. These will depend on where we need to be at specific times throughout the day.

how exactly are you intending to do this challenge . You are 2 teams right ? does that mean one team takes on half the stations and the others the rest ? will each team only have to cover 175 stations or do both teams cover all stations , how many people per team ? won't you have to wait 5 mins at each station before you can re-hire the bike or take a new one ? what time of day are you starting ?

cheers
lindsay