NHS Ride of Thanks: from the Moor to the seaside, Devon’s bikers ride out…
This last weekend saw the ‘NHS Ride of Thanks’ organised by biker groups to raise funds for the Devon Freewheelers, one of the UK’s volunteer blood biker charities. You may have seen them on their liveried bikes marked ‘BLOOD’, transporting…well… blood and other things (don’t ask) between hospitals, pharmacies and clinics, every night of the year and 24 hours at weekends. And like the National Health Service they serve, they’ve been pretty busy over the past 18 months. Running from Lee Mill, near Plymouth, to Paignton, the ride was expected to attract hundreds of riders. And as my husband is a blood biker, we went along to support. For range reasons I decided not to take the Zero and rode pillion on the Multistrada instead.
Instead of thumping down the A38 we took the scenic route — the lovely B3212 through Moretonhampstead and across Dartmoor; I had the pillion’s privilege of looking at the view. The road rises steeply out of Exeter, with a straight over Longdown (the clue’s in the name) and down again towards the Teign Valley. We passed the winding riverside B3193 (always a lovely ride, but not today). At Dunsford we entered the National Park and climbed up through the steep woods — deciduous trees, tall and light, with the bracken below turning brown — and over some great twists and turns into a valley; then a steep climb into Moretonhampstead, a small town of old buildings and narrow streets. (I was once in a coach that got stuck taking a corner into the town square). Passing the motor museum (closed), we saw Bovey Castle to our left; then we left behind the rough grassy fields and began crossing the moor proper. Bare and stark, the famous Tors visible in the distance, the rock formations look as if they could have been made by Neolithic people — or giants.
Sheep sat chewing contemplatively in the road, ponies cropped what green grass there was and later on we even saw some Highland cattle, long-haired and rusty brown like the coos on the NC500. On past Postbridge and Princetown (where the famous Victorian prison looms), the road fringed by yellow gorse and red-berried rowan. I decide it’s impossible to describe the colour of the moor as it changes every second with the light and the cloud cover. There’s the odd conifer plantation but most is sedge, gorse and rock — and the occasional chimney from a disused mine. And then descending into Yelverton, Plymouth and onto the A38 to Lee Mill, just in time to start the ride.
Hundreds of motorcyclists were gathered, with about 30 blood bikers at the front in their hi-viz kit. We’d never seen so many Freewheelers in one place before and I felt swept up in the mood of the occasion, especially when we began to move and people on street corners waved and clapped, whilst passing drivers honked their horns. I can’t think of anything else more beloved in the UK than the NHS, not even the Queen. Not even kittens. Everyone knows the health service is underfunded, overstretched, unbearably overstressed by Covid — but everyone also knows someone whose life has been saved by it. Danny Boyle (rightly) put it into the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics as a part of British identity.
I had no idea of the number of bikers behind us until I saw Martyn Butcher’s video on Facebook. A cruiser first, then the blood bikers on liveried bikes and then those on their own, followed by at least 400 sports bikes, adventure bikes, crazy customs, a whole phalanx of scooters in proper mod gear…a cavalcade of pennants, funny costumes, flags, helmets with horns, all proceeding up the A38, waving at the people on the bridges. Some of the people who waved from the laybys were lean, tough-looking bearded guys with plenty of tattoos. At one point we were joined by a biker who looked like Hades himself, wearing a skull-shaped helmet and riding a bike with a crystal skull mounted on the headstock with headlights in its eye sockets; he later peeled off to show us the way. I was rather glad he was on our side. And on we went, onto the road past Riverford to Totnes and then Paignton, where all four hundred and something riders parked their bikes along the seafront by the pier, much to the surprise of the families playing on the beach.
Once there, we indulged in the great pastime of bikers everywhere — looking at other people’s bikes and shooting the breeze. It was the biggest biker gathering I’d seen (apart from BSB at Thruxton) and there was plenty to admire, from an MZ with sidecar that looked like it came from Mad Max to a sleek and glorious Hayabusa in red and black. The riders were many and various too; members of local biker groups which been involved in the event organisation — the (Satan’s) Slaves, the Devon Demons, the Widow’s Sons and a Christian patched biker group rubbed shoulders with members of the IAM and I’m told there were even a few Curvy Riders present.
There were some great bikes to admire, many adorned with skulls — Death’s Head ones, not sugar skull and roses ones — and (to my surprise) various cuddly toys. We spent a few minutes chatting with “Womble Will” who was riding a brand new Voge with Great Uncle Bulgaria on the back. We had parked up quite close to Hades’ bike, which had no Wombles. He’d hung up his amazing helmet and moved away, so we never saw what he looked like. Somehow that seemed appropriate…Whoever he was, he and his fellow bikers raised a fantastic 3,000 for the Devon Freewheelers, at a time when charity funding has been in freefall because of the pandemic. And we all had fun too.
