Bike Ride 2004

London to Amsterdam

20-22 August 2004

The ride was undertaken by Abiola Owoaje, Tola Obembe and Essay Folami over three days from 20-22 August 2004, a round trip of nearly 800 miles.

The ride started off wet, and remained that way all the way to Amsterdam. We set of at 8.00 am headed southbound on the M20 towards Folkestone where we took the Euro Tunnel Le Shuttle to Calais in France.

The rain was waiting for us as we joined the E15 motorway towards Belgium. We had a quick lunch as we entered Brussels (our first meal of the day). We set off again half and hour later and it was as if the rain was waiting for us. It fell even harder than before, hitting us like pellets from a shot gun. The sky was darker than I’ve ever seen and one could be forgiving for thinking it was dusk rather than afternoon. Visibility was no more than three yards and my wind shield was useless at this point. It was completely covered with dirty rain water and I was forced to peeking round the sides or above just to have a glimpse of the road ahead. We continued in these conditions till we entered The Netherlands around 7.30pm. The rain eased off a bit giving us a little respite as we made our way to our hotel.

Next morning we were off again to Kampen, 65 miles away from Amsterdam. The rain returned in full force but did not last as long as the previous day. We returned to Amsterdam around 7pm and had an early night to get some rest for our return to London the next day.

By 7.30am we were on our way heading out of Amsterdam towards Belgium. The weather was much brighter with the sun shining as if to make up for all the rain of the previous days. The ride was pretty much uneventful except for taking a wrong turn in Antwerp, Belgium and getting lost as a result. We however managed to find out way back, thanks to a friendly biker who pointed us in the right direction. Despite this, we managed to get to Calais just on time to take the Euro Tunnel train back to England, finally arriving in London at 3.00pm.

We raised a total of £3,000 on this ride which went to support NAS International Charity's work with the Osiomo Leper Community in Ore, Nigeria and LES Education Charity's work with the supplementary educational needs of ethnic minority children in south east London.

Bike Ride 2004 Gallery