How the Black Unity Bike Ride Is Working to Change Perceptions and Foster Community
I started the Black Unity Bike Ride (BUBR) because I wanted to extinguish assumptions such as black people can’t swim or black people can’t cycle. These are simply not true. I wanted to change the narrative and celebrate our agency.
Wellbeing, health and fitness have always been a big part of my life. As a kid, I played football and basketball, and as an adult, I’ve experimented with various forms of fitness. I was into martial arts for a few years, then I got into personal training, then strength training and white-collar boxing. The reason I chose cycling [when founding BUBR] was because I nostalgically remember it giving me my independence, and I also love the sense of freedom that comes from being out on the road.
In 2019, I was fundraising for Origin, a youth programme that I co-founded. For that, we rode bikes from London to Paris, raising £10,000. After the experience, I felt compelled to encourage people of black heritage to prioritise their health, which culminated in me organising the first bike ride four years ago. Every year since, we’ve purposefully rode our bikes on main roads around London because it’s all about making a statement. We get a lot of love from passers-by, bus drivers and other motorists.
I love our tag line, ‘London’s Carnival on Bikes’, because it perfectly describes what it’s like to be on one of our rides. We have 10 guys who we call our vibe makers; they follow all of the cyclists round on cargo bikes, carrying giant speakers that play everything from Afrobeats to reggae and jungle. Before anyone sees us, they hear and feel our joy coming through. I know it’s a real sight to behold when you have more than 1,000 black and brown people riding all types of bikes.
This year, we rode 17 miles from Leyton in east London to College Park, south London. At the end of the ride, we set up a big finale – black, red and green smoke flares and music blaring. There were also food vendors provided by our partners from Black Eats LDN, while Mandem on the Mat were there to offer yoga sessions. ‘Give Blood, Spread Love, England’, which is the Sickle Cell Society’s blood- donation project, was also represented. We work with them to try to raise awareness for the community to register as blood donors. I can’t stress enough the importance of community to what we do; we exist to facilitate a space of unity.
For me, the idea of signing up to challenges is not about trying to become elite; it’s more about my wellbeing from a holistic perspective. When I’m not training, I’m not focused, and as a CEO of the social- mobility charity Career Ready, I need to be able to be productive. The consistency of training and challenging myself has a ripple effect on other aspects of my life. It helps me be a better father, a better husband and a better member of my community.
A few days before this year’s BUBR, I was in my car, driving my eight-year-old son to drop off flyers for the event. He picked up one of them and said, ‘Daddy, did you make all of this?’ After I told him I did, he asked, ‘When you retire, can I take over?’ So I said yes again, and we sealed our agreement by shaking on it. Then I smiled, because, for the first time since the inception of BUBR, my ‘why’ had an addition. What started from a place of being of service to the black community is now leaning towards leaving a legacy.
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