When I arrived in Brixton I was really worried about what else might go wrong - perhaps the bikes would've been stolen. However I arrived at our office to see that all the bikes had been unloaded and were waiting for me. No sooner did Helen and her husband drive off to get their own bikes than the first of the young people turned up. By the time we were due to leave everyone had arrived and we had a motley crew of staff, volunteers and young people all ready to go. Now it was really time to worry - how would a group of 20+ people manage to get from Brixton to Buckingham Palace in one piece? As I handed out the preprepared maps I was feeling a little anxious. However the route in was absolutely fine, we avoided almost all of the main roads and stuck together fairly well. It was great to have volunteers at the front and the end of the "snake" and as the roads were so quiet it didn't matter that we didn't stick in formation all the time. In fact it felt brilliant to be part of such a big group!
If I felt that 20 or so was big then freewheel blew my mind. As we arrived there were thousands of cyclists. I had no idea what to expect but this was just amazing! We met up with some others at the LCC stand on the mall and had the chance to explore the area before we joined freewheel. It was so good to see everyone get excited at Buckingham Palace and seeing the guards not to mention seeing everyone wearing their spoke t-shirts - it made the trip up and the cycle round so much easier as we could spot who was in our group by the colour of their tops.
Once we set off on the route is was fantastic - it felt so great to be cycling with so many people and so empowering to have completely taken over the road. I think my favourite bit was cycling through the tunnel or perhaps it was seeing how much the young people enjoyed themselves after weeks of hard work mending the bikes and how pleased they all were to finally get their very own bike.
I can't quite describe much I loved it or how proud I was of everyone who had helped make it happen, it was such an amazing day and hopefully just the start of more cycling trips. I've been smiling ever since. I think that this has been the best project I've worked on at the Refugee Council, both in terms of interacting closely with some amzing young people and volunteers and also personally in actually getting me a little bit fitter and actually riding I bike. I would never have thought at the start of the year I'd be cycling to work.
Vanessa
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