London to Brighton - The Live Blog!

5:47pm

We have a flood of finishers at the Brighton end. Fantastic atmosphere at the end.

The BBC and Telegraph have both kindly written about the amazing day - read their articles here: http://bit.ly/akjeIf & http://bit.ly/bU9oBI with our very own Gemma Cloke being given a very much earned hat tip.

Congratulations all, keep an eye on the blog for even more updates

London to Brighton - The Live Blog!

3:40 pm

Wow what a view from the end point of the London to Brighton bike ride. Over 27,000 riders have taken part today, what an achievement. Some fantastic stories and photos, keep your eye on the blog for updates.

London to Brighton - The Live Blog!

1:40pm

It is almost impossible to single anyone out for doing the London to Brighton ride as every single person taking part has worked so hard and raised so much. But here are a few:

Gary Marlow who has taken part in 30 London to Brighton bike rides - amazing considering there have only ever been in existence for 35 years. Fantastic achievement.

James Crowe - finishing his first London to Brighton bike ride at the tender age of 14! Well done James, that is 54miles under the belt.

Dr Rosemary Lennard from BBC Breakfast completed the race looking as fresh as she does on the BBC breakfast sofa: http://yfrog.com/5f5lybj

Finally, these guys - just for the truthful humour: http://yfrog.com/muu68j

Well done to every single person riding, supporting and organising, we couldn’t do it without you.

London to Brighton - The Live Blog!

12:04

We have our updated London to Brighton Flickr stream ready for you all to view, right here in the live blog! How exciting.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

London to Brighton - The Live Blog!

11:50



The last riders leave the London to Brighton start point, here is a quick video. Blink and you’ll miss it, as the riders zoom by!

At the other end riders are starting to finish, some excellent times. Tony Galbraith who took part in the BHF connections campaign has just finished with his son. Congratulations Tony!

London to Brighton - The Live Blog!

9:50am

The response on Twitter for the London to Brighton bike ride has been fantastic. You know you don’t have to be on twitter to follow the updates, so have a read of it here.

You can also watch updated photos of the ride on our flickr stream here: http://bit.ly/aYB5zU

London to Brighton - The Live Blog!

8:30am

Just came across this blog on the Just Giving blog about beetroot juice - I Anyone trying something a bit different to improve performance in today’s ride?

London to Brighton - The Live Blog!

7:30am

Just thought we should mention that in the run up to the London to Brighton ride we have been inundated with stories of training on our twitter page using the hashtag #L2B - has been fantastic reading. Here are some of the comments:

“Final bit of cycling training for #L2B was not fun - 10 miles in pouring rain. Newly-purchased padded shorts are a big success though..”

“Time for a bit of #L2B shopping. New cycle jersey I reckon. Well, you need an excuse...”

“SCARED! #L2B”

“I still can;t believe the ride is this Sunday! Gonna do a mini ride tommorrow and then that is me ready for Sunday! argh! #L2B”

London to Brighton - The Live Blog!

6:55am

Any of our riders on Foursquare? Well, if you are make sure you search and check in to the “BHF London to Brighton Start Point” and the “BHF London to Brighton End Point”. We want to get you all swarm badges!

If you aren’t on foursquare, this is what it is: www.foursquare.com

London to Brighton - The Live Blog!

6:20am

How about a history lesson...yes it is before 6:30am on a Sunday but it feels right to let you know two historical BHF bike ride facts!

First ride was held in 1976 when 30 friends cycled from London’s Hyde Park to the Brighton seafront. This year’s ride is the 35th! - Any readers ride in that first ride in 1976? Let us know!

Approximately 719,500 riders have taken part in the ride, cycling more than 38 millions miles.

Ok, history lesson over. The first riders are setting off, just 54miles to go. Every journey starts with the first step (although I guess it is more of a rotation on a bike rather than a step, but you get the point!)

Good luck those first riders. Can’t wait to hear the stories

London to Brighton - The Live Blog!

5:45am

So the riders are nearly ready....it really is amazing, over 27,000 people will be taking part today. Astounding.

Every single rider today is raising money for a vital cause. We cannot thank you all enough.

A “did you know moment” now...Ditching Beacon part of the ride is the highest point of the ride at 813 feet, on average it takes 15 minutes to reach the top. Bet it is worth it for the ride down though.

London to Brighton - The Live Blog!

5:05am


Morning everyone, welcome to the first ever BHF live blog! We will be blogging about the amazing London to Brighton bike ride today, it is 5:05 and the start is under an hour away! You can feel the tension and excitement....

We will be blogging; pictures, stories and tweets from the day so tune in this Father’s day and hear amazing stories from some of the fantastic riders taking part.

If you are on Twitter don’t forget to follow us @thebhf. You can also follow a live London to Brighton twitter feed here or by searching on Twitter for the hashtag #L2B.

You can also email me your stories at kusabbir@bhf.org.uk - I am looking forward to all your comments, tweets and emails! Stay with me...

L2B 2010 details revealed, summer just around the corner...

What better way to shrug off thoughts of the approaching wintry weather?

We've just published registration details for next summer's London to Brighton Bike Ride!

If you need convincing, or even just reminding, have a look at the photos from this year's ride (wow, what a warm day that was).

From capital to coast - beating heart disease together

A huge well done and thank you to the 27,000 cyclists who took part our London to Brighton Bike Ride in great weather yesterday.

Our annual 54-mile ride, Europe's largest charity bike event, on a scenic route through Surrey and Sussex has raised over £46m for our lifesaving work since it started.

Cyclists set off from south London at half-hourly intervals from 6am to 9am and began arriving on Brighton seafront from about 8.30am.

Since 1980, when we first became involved, over 650,000 riders have taken part. Most riders took about six hours to reach the finishing post.

Among those taking part was comedian and author Dave Gorman (pictured right), who completed the route in three hours and 59 minutes.

"I wanted to get under four hours," he said. "I'm really pleased I got up Ditchling Beacon. I'm officially fitter than I was four years ago when I did it last.

"It was brilliant that people came out to cheer. It's a great event to support the BHF."

BHF spokeswoman Tamara Bennett said: "The day has gone really, really well. The weather has been fantastic - dry and sunny but with enough cloud cover to stop people getting too hot."

See our Flickr photo gallery from L2B 2009

Follow the event as it unfolded on our Twitter feed

Did you take part in the Ride, or would you like to pay tribute to those who did? Then please post a comment below...

Apply for London to Brighton places

It's been a busy day and we now have over 20,000 registrations. Thank you to everyone!

We've now switched to applications for the remaining limited places. Those of you who apply and are successful will be sent place offers in April. We'll also let you know if you've been unlucky - so please wait to hear from us.

If you emailed today - we'll be in touch as soon as possible. Please be patient as our inbox has been very busy.

Date announced for 2009 BHF London to Brighton Bike Ride

We thought you'd like to know that we've just announced the date for our 2009 BHF London to Brighton Bike Ride. It's Sunday 21 June.

We'll be publishing further details of how to register to enter the Ride - which is the largest charity cycle event of its kind in Europe - from mid-December this year.

The 54-mile event is our biggest fundraising event, raising over £3.9m in 2007. This year we're hoping the Ride will raise even more to help continue our lifesaving work.

Cyclists really took the event to heart this year, with all places selling out weeks beforehand. And since we became involved in 1980, over £42 million has been raised for us.

You can see photos from this year's Ride and also read comments from those who part. There are also TV news reports of the event on our BHF YouTube Channel

Did you take part in the Ride this year? Would you recommend it to others interested in taking part? Are you already looking forward to it? Let us know by posting your comments below!

Martyn's race against time - and Le Tour!

Martyn Jones, from Hertford, is riding the gruelling route of Le Tour de France ahead of the professional racers.

He set off three days before the event and hopes they won’t catch him up!

The money he raises will be split between ourselves and the Association of Young People with ME.

Always active as a youngster, Martyn loved most sports, however, in his late-teens he was diagnosed with M.E. For a very energetic person, this was extremely debilitating.

Martyn says: “You feel like a living dead person so to speak. Imagine having a really hard bout of flu, but for years and years.”

Fortunately, at 34 Martyn is now well over his M.E. and it was cycling that got him fit.

“I wanted to donate half of the money I raise to a charity that promotes sport and especially my passion – cycling. The BHF organise so many fantastic rides including London to Brighton, Oxford to Cambridge and the Norwich Ride, so they were an obvious choice.

"Plus, both my grandparents died of heart disease. I didn’t even get the chance to meet my granddad as he died in his fifties.”

Martyn is riding the exact same course as Le Tour de France participants, staying in the same towns along the way.

He is paying for the event out of his own savings. He hopes to raise £30,000 to split between both charities. Visit Martyn’s site at www.justgiving.com/letour4good

Check out our new BHF channels

We've been rapidly growing the number of multimedia channels through which you can get a wide range of different types of BHF content, such as video, audio, photos, podcasts, mobile texts and, of course, this blog.

So we've pulled them all together on to a single page which you can now access, and it's called BHF Multimedia

But these new channels aren't just a way for us to communicate with you, they're also your chance to talk with us, and share your own thoughts and content with your fellow users.

The recent posts on this blog about our 2008 London to Brighton Bike Ride were a great example of how you can feed back to us about how well or badly you think we are doing.

So it's worth recapping what the channels are, and we look forward to receiving your comments and your content, whether it's video, photos, audio or maybe you just want to become a fan on our BHF Facebook page. Here's how you can interact with us and fellow users...

BHF on YouTube - visit our comprehensive video channel, become a subscriber to BHF videos on Heart Health, Events, Campaigns, Research and much more, and leave comments for us and other users.

BHF on Flickr - see our great collections of photos from BHF events, campaigns and more, join our BHF Flickr group and share your photos and comments with us and fellow members.

BHF on iTunes (you need iTunes on your computer) - subscribe to our regular audio and video podcasts, and if you have anything to say about what you hear or see leave some feedback for us on iTunes.

BHF on Facebook - find out more about the work of the BHF, join our growing number of Facebook fans and leave comments for us and other visitors to our page.

And last but not least...

BHF on Blogger - get the latest updates about the BHF, subscribe to the blog by RSS or Atom feed, and post your comments on our latest news and activities.

So if you have a comment or question about any of our new multimedia channels - or if there's something you think we should be doing which we aren't - then please post a comment below...

And just in case you missed this...

There were some great TV news pieces about our 2008 London to Brighton Bike Ride last weekend.

One of them was on BBC Breakfast News early on Sunday morning, but if you were taking part in - or making your way to - the Ride itself you will almost certainly have missed it.

Anyway, those very kind folk at the BBC and ITV have just given us permission to host the clips on our BHF YouTube video channel, so if you haven't seen them yet, here they are. First up, BBC Breakfast News...



And here's the ITV London Tonight news report...



Reminder - you can also see our gallery of 150 great photos taken at the Ride

And once again, if you took part in the London to Brighton Ride please let us know how you got on by posting a comment below.

Thanks very much to everyone who took part, and we look forward to hearing from you!

Enjoyed London to Brighton? Cyclists wanted for Vietnam to Cambodia

We're sure most of you have now fully recovered from the London to Brighton Bike Ride and are thinking about the next big challenge.

Good news. Places are still available for our Vietnam to Cambodia Bike Ride in November. This spectacular ride involves peddling from Ho Chi Minh City to the Cambodian border, along the banks of the Mekong River to the ancient temples of Angkor Wat.

Find out how you can enter by going to the Overseas events section our main website.

For other UK bike rides see our event finder.

Once again, if you took part in the London to Brighton Ride please let us know how you got on by posting a comment below. Thanks very much to everyone who took part, and we look forward to hearing from you!