The Supermarket Slay Ride 2022
Photo by Tim Wilkey
WOW! Where to even start? The Supermarket Slay Ride was such a humbling experience that made me so proud to be part of such a generous and fun community. Bristol bike people are good people! Together we managed to collect a gargantuan amount of food that will be turned into delicious Christmas Hampers and we raised £1036 to go with that! The money will be used to purchase Argos vouchers so that the children in the families receiving these hampers will get a gift on Christmas Day as well.
When I first had the idea, I thought it would be a cool way to get some extra support for food banks this year. 2022 has been a real mixed bag, and now more people than ever are experiencing food poverty. Christmas is a tricky time for so many people and the current (and enduring) cost of living crisis is only amplifying that. Everyone who contributed to the Supermarket Slay Ride managed to create some magic and have a real impact on people who are struggling right now, and to be honest I get emotional thinking about it.
First off I have to thank Tim of Forever Pedalling - our ride partner. As soon as I shared the idea with him, he wanted to get involved and help make it a success. Tim’s love of planning routes was put to the test with this ride. I don’t think it would be most people’s idea of fun to put together a route that takes in local supermarkets, but he loves a challenge! His knowledge of Bristol didn’t disappoint and it’s fair to say, he aced the brief. But the support didn’t end there, Tim made the ace shopping lists everyone had to remind them what they needed to grab, took all these amazing photos, designed the logo and so much more.
Another epic shoutout needs to go to Graham of Bertha’s Pizza. We wanted to have a pizza party option for riders to socialise after doing so much good, so we arranged to meet and told Graham the plan. He was instantly onboard and wanted to make it bigger and better and without hesitation offered to donate all the money from the pizza party to The Trussell Trust. That’s right, he made all that pizza for free! Sam was responsible for getting so many epic local raffle prizes together as well, thanks for that from us and the winners!
We also got support from Vitus Bikes who kindly donated a Nucleus hardtail as the headline raffle prize…seriously a whole brand new bike! It really helped to grab people’s attention and sell more raffle tickets. Big shoutout to them…and to Tony who won it.
Maybe the biggest thank you of them all goes out to all the riders and raffle ticket buyers! Without you guys none of this would have happened. Thanks for getting behind this idea and for showing up on the day. Thank you for spending you hard earned cash on other people so they can enjoy Christmas Day too. It’s really heartwarming to know that there are so many people out there who want to help other people. You really are good eggs. 🧡 Same again next year?