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Created: 18 December 2005
Sunday morning! I mean MORNING! 7:30 to be more precise. My alarm clock rang without pity and my wife gave it a huge slap in shock, as she wasn’t expecting it to go off on a Sunday. I got up quickly, had a quick shower and a quick breakfast. Paivi had already sent me a text saying ‘wakey, wakey’’ I was going to meet her at her place by 9am.
It’s the Xmas Toy Run 2005! I haven’t been on the past events, shame! How could I have missed such a nice event?? Every year at Xmas time a group of bikers get together at the Ace Café north London for a special rideout. Every biker brings a toy, a xmas present for a child! You just buy it, wrap it and write a little note for a boy or a girl. Then we go on convoy to 2 or so chosen Hospitals and hand it to the children. For 2005 it was the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother hospital and Guy’s & Saint Thomas Hospital.
Hundreds of seriously ill children will have they Xmas in the hospital this year. Some of them are not fortunate enough to have a present under the tree… Perhaps not even a Xmas tree… To me it was really emotional to see all these bikers getting together for such a nice thing.
I arrived at Paivi’s place just before 9am, she was fitting some Xmas decoration on her bike, which I helped her with. After that we left to the Ace, it was really fun to look all the car drivers looking at this little girl riding this big scooter all dressed as Santa! Yes, even the white hair and the bird, lol !
At the Ace it wasn’t that so different though! There were dozens of bikers dressed as Santa Claus and better, dozens of bikes ‘dressed’ with all sorts of Xmas decorations. From choppers, sport bikes, touring bikes, commuters to trikes. The Ace café was offering a prize to the best decorated bike! The winner this year really put some effort on that, see at the picture galleries.
There we met other LB’s fellow members, Rottie had his ZX6 all wrapped on Xmas present paper, and it looked really cool! GOF was there looking like someone that is not used to get up from the bed that early on Sundays. David couldn’t start his KTM due to the ‘cold weather’ so he was on his G/F R6. Strag took his gorgeous black Gixxer 1000 on his brand new Dainese set of winter clothes and he brought with him another couple of friends on an Aprilia 1000. We were set to leave the Ace by 11pm so, I had time for another ‘little’ breakfast, and the Ace Café has a very tasty menu I guarantee you!
11am! We put all our presents together on a van that drove in front of the convoy. The Police was there to escort us on the run. I have to say that they did a brilliant job! Every traffic lights there was a Policeman on his bike stopping the traffic for us. We rode first to the Queen Elizabeth’s hospital. The car drivers, the pedestrians and the people on the windows were all waving their hands to us. It was quite funny to see the little kids confusion expressed on their faces when they sow so many Santa Claus at the same time and not quite on the usual transportation… lol! They all were really friendly and calmly waited for us all to pass. Thank you!
At the hospitals all those that were dressed as Santa had the opportunity to go in and hand the presents to the children themselves. During the ride between hospitals I couldn’t avoid thinking how nice is it to be a biker eh? It by no means is a sole hobby, prove of that is the very own Londonbikers.com but, one minute ago I was having a nice chat with my friends and then I was alone riding my bike in convoy to hand some presents to kids in need… It’s unavoidable to feel proud and want to do something more for next year. Fellow LB members, next year I will do the Toy run again! I’m sure loads of you will come with me and together we can make this nice event even bigger. After the Guy’s Hospital the convoy rode to the Parliament and back to the Ace Café. The day was really gorgeous! Cold but really sunny, couldn’t be better!
Thank you all ! Thank you fellow LB’s members and many thanks to all the other bikers that spend the Sunday before Xmas doing this beautiful action of give a toy to a child! There were something like 250/300 of us! Have a very nice Xmas you all!
Related GalleriesThe 2005 Ace Café Christmas Hospital Toy Run #2
