Mayor’s marvellous mission

THIRTY-FIVE mountain bikers joined the Mayor on an off-road trail around Henley to raise money for charity.

The event was part of a series of events being held by Councillor Tom Buckley in aid of his chosen charities, Lowland Rescue, the Chiltern Centre and the Nomad youth and community project.

Riders took on an
18-mile route starting in Market Place and up to Lambridge Woods, past the Nettlebed estate, to Catslip, through the Warburg nature reserve, through Maidensgrove and back to Henley via Bix.

Alongside the cyclists, the group was joined by one runner, Kevin Jacob, 53, who completed the full course on foot, finishing in the middle of the pack.

Before setting off, riders were given breakfast outside Pavilion in Market Place and on their return, they were hosted at the Argyll.

At the pub they were served chilli con carne, which had been made from brisket donated by the mayor that he had won in a raffle and beer donated by Elusive Brewing in Wokingham.

The event raised around £2,350.

Cllr Buckley said that he had previously cycled the route during an event organised by the former Lovibonds brewery. He said it was nice to revisit the circuit with many of the friends he had met through the brewery.

“It went really really well,” he said. “There were a couple of mechanical issues and a couple of people who got a bit lost but everyone made it back.

“There were a couple of people I knew from when I first moved to Henley and I did the ride before with people from Lovibonds so the event was partly to honour that and get the group back together again.”

Cllr Buckley said that he was initially worried before the ride due to rainfall in the run-up to the event but it went “better than expected”. He said: “We had gone round the other day when it was hammering down with rain and I thought it was going to be a lot worse than it was.

“There were some parts [that were muddy] but we had 18 hours of no rain beforehand so it was all right but people did get very muddy. It’s a mountain bike route, it’s always going to be muddy and wet.

“It was really hard work but we got halfway around and the sun came out and the weather held out.”

Cllr Buckley said he wanted to thank the event sponsors, which included Pavilion, the Argyll, Warings Bakery, Gabriel Machin, Waitrose and Elusive. Marc Lovatt from Wargrave described the ride as “muddy”.

He was joined on the ride by his friend’s son William Jewell, aged 14.

He said: “I met a couple of new local people who had signed up to do it and I also looked after my mate’s son and made sure he got himself around the track. It was a lot of fun and great to get him around.

“The marshals were brilliant, the signposting was excellent and the route was fantastic and gave us all a bit of a challenge, with good ups and downs and a few puddles.”

Mr Lovatt, who described himself as a keen mountain biker, said he had cycled the area “many times”.

He said: “There are some pretty big hills coming into Maidensgrove, referred to locally as test hill because it’s 10 minutes of your life.”