Mayor shift gears to raise money for his charities

Mayor’s Mission to raise money for his three local charities (The Chiltern Centre, Nomad and Lowland Rescue) wheeled-off on Saturday with a 17.4 mile Mountain Bike Challenge.

Before the 35 riders set off from Market Place, they were treated to coffee and bacon sandwiches thanks to The Pavillion, Warings bakery and Gabriel Machins butchers. The route took in Bix, Maidensgrove, Russells Water, Lambridge Wood, Swyncombe, Crocker End, Nettlebed Woods, Highmoor and Rotherfield Greys before returning to The Argyll for a well-earned pint and a chilli lunch. The route was the same as the PIP charity Mountain Bike ride which was organised by local resident Bill Feeney from Lovibonds for many years from 2012 to 2018.

Mayor, Councillor Tom Buckley said, “I used to mountain bike up in Leeds.  When we first came to Henley in 2017 I asked in one of the Facebook groups where in Henley do I go mountain biking? And they said, find Lovibonds, find Jeff, and he’ll work it out for you. We turned up and Bill Feeney was doing the PIP ride.

“I have met the majority of my core group of friends through the PIP ride and Lovibonds including Councillors Glen Lambert and Laurence Plant.  When COVID hit, the group splintered apart a little bit. I thought, well why not resurrect the Pip Ride for the Mayor’s charities to get all these guys back riding again and to raise money for my charities. I wouldn’t be in a position to start raising the funds for charity if I hadn’t met the group of people to do this. That’s what, for me, is so important about Henley is it is a community here. It is superb to bring it back. Look at the people over there – they’re big smiles, they’re happy. This is the kind of, you know, this is Henley, this is what we do. This is what I see as home. We’ve already raised over £2,000 in donations.”

Bill Feeney said, “I was delighted to see that a really great mountain biking community event be resurrected by the Mayor for these three very impactful local charities.  I was more than happy to share the blueprint of the even and I think it came off spectacularly.”

Rider, Stuart Howe said, “It’s great that Tom thought about doing the old Lovibonds ride for his Mayor’s Mission to support the charities.  I helped put up all the signs with Tom and Bill so it was a lot of fun in the pouring rain.  The course was fantastic as always.  Given all the rain we had yesterday, it was reasonably dry under the tyre.  It was a giggle.  Literally a mile into to it Tom had to stop for over half an hour because he had puncture so everybody else disappeared and he was left at the back with myself and Darryl the sweeper at the back.”

Kevin Jacob ran the course. He said, “I’ve always run the course as I’m a road cyclist.  I did it again because it is a good crack and  I wanted to support Tom.  The conditions weren’t bad under foot and I did it in an OK time.”

Tom is thankful to the The Argyll who agreed to cook the chilli from the brisket of beef he won in a raffle and for Elusive Brewing for donating a keg of beer for The Argyll to serve.  Tom added, “I can’t thank anybody who’s helped us enough because I can’t do this on my own.  You get voted in to be the Mayor and then it’s down to you to make the most of it. You can only make the most of it if you get the people around you to help you do it.”

The Mayor has lots of other events and initiatives planned including a writing competition, Town Hall Club night, Zombie run and a food festival.  You can read all about these at https://mayorsmission.co.uk/