Calling all bikers: ToyRun 2005

Next Sunday (27 November) is the ToyRun, and this year I'm actually going to take part.

If you haven't heard of it before, the ToyRun is a mass ride (I think it was something like 40000 bikes across South Africa last year), with the aim of donating toys to children's charities for Christmas. It's great fun, and awesome to see. According to the ToyRun website it's now an international event, and is the biggest motorbike charity event in South Africa.

So if you have a bike licence, and a bike (or access to a bike), why not take part? The details for each of the national rides are here. In Cape Town, there are going to be two meeting points - one at Ratanga Junction, and the normal one at Ottery Hypermarket. The two will join at Settler's Way (which is going to be interesting!), and the ride ends at Maynardville as usual. Entrance is one toy (to be donated to charity), and non-bikers can join in at Maynardville afterwards provided that they also bring one toy to donate. There will be food stalls, entertainment (Kurt Schoenraad and Mark Lottering will be performing), and lots of bike and bike gear!

For more information, you can read the Press Kit (MSWord doc) or visit the official ToyRun website.

I have a couple of photos from last year; they're pretty bad, but see below anyway. I'd also post a couple of photos of the bike I'll be riding (a Kymco Hipster 125cc), but the only photos I have are either fuzzy cellphone camera photos, and photos that show off the bike nicely but have me looking stupid in them (my natural state in photos :P). I'll try to get some good ones this year and post them next week.

ToyRun 2004:

One of the two trailers filled with toys.	All that shiny stuff in the background? That's some of the bikes that took part.

Update (28/11/2005):

I did the ToyRun yesterday, and seeing (and hearing!) all those bikes in one place was really impressive. IOL has a pretty good write up, and they have a picture gallery as well. I'll post some of the pics I took, probably tomorrow. The crowds were great - people were lining the roads, and everyone was cheering and clapping and you really felt like you were doing something amazingly cool :-) But while it was amazingly non-chaotic, given how many bikes there were, it was also amazingly non-organized - it seemed (and maybe it was just because it was my first run, and I didn't know anyone else there and wasn't there as part of a club) that it wasn't so much a whole bunch of bikers getting together to do a run, as co-incidentally lots of individual bikers who happened to be in the same place going the same way at the same time. But still, it was a fun event and worth the sunburn :-)

Update 2/12/2005:

Here are a couple of the photos I took (the cool black&silver cruise is mine :D):

ToyRun 2005: