York Rally wins Big Lottery Fund grant!

We’re delighted that the York Rally is now National Lottery funded!

The York Rally has been awarded a grant of £5000 as one of the Lottery-supported ‘good causes’. This money will help us to afford significant improvements to the facilities we can offer at the event, and allow us to further boost event safety.

In the award letter the Big Lottery Fund said: “Receiving this award is a mark of quality of the work you are doing in your community. Congratulations on your grant and thank you for all that you do to support your community. We wish you every success.”

Many thanks to York Rally volunteer fundraiser Sue for all of her hard work in applying for this funding – it’ll make a real difference to the 2018 and future Rallies!

Meanwhile fundraising continues: please do vote for us ASAP in the Aviva Community Awards – voting closes soon:
 
And if you’d like to support us directly, we’re running a campaign on Justgiving:
 
All funds raised will be used wisely and purely to make the Rally better – our team are all unpaid volunteers!

Announcing the York Rally 2018!

We’re delighted to confirm that the 2018 York Rally will be taking place on the weekend of 23-24th June 2018!

It’ll be back better than ever, with camping, rides, talks, trade, food, music, racing, auction, jumble and much more…

Campsite bookings are open now – book your pitch ASAP to enjoy the much-reduced super-earlybird prices, to be sited with your friends or clubmates, and to help support our planning!

This will be the fourth edition of the Rally run by the new all-volunteer team which revived the Rally in 2015 – huge thanks to all who have helped and supported this effort.

We’re happy to report that the 2017 event was another safe and successful Rally! It was a good year for rides, racing (BSCA and cyclo-cross are both keen to come back in 2018) and talks, with the tent often packed out. Sadly two bikes were stolen overnight despite the security presence, although happily Graham Lawrance’s beloved Bob Jackson has since been safely recovered. Financially, a significant dip in trade bookings was behind a small loss over the year, although this was safely covered by Rally reserves and fundraising efforts including the 2017 Sportive.

So for 2018, we need to work even harder to ensure that future Rallies are both succcessful and profitable – without making camping unaffordable, or compromising the open nature of the event by charging for entry.

As you’ll see in the coming months, we’re now working to bring in fundraising and sponsorship to help secure the Rally’s future.  We hope this will allow us to offer even more facilities and activities to all who attend the Rally and, we hope, attract ever more younger-generation participants. We’ll do this while carefully safeguarding the Rally’s unique, non-commercial character and all-volunteer ethos.

The first stage of this is a crowdfunding campaign on JustGiving – please do chip in if you can to support your Rally!

We’ll keep everyone posted as plans develop, but for now, please do make sure you can make it to the Rally on the 23-24th June 2018 – and book your campsite pitch now!

Your all-volunteer York Rally team

As ever, all are most welcome at our next planning meeting (and AGM), which is on the 25th November 2017 at 10AM at the Church Hall of St Chad’s on the Knavesmire, Campleshon Road, York YO23 1EY. Please just let us know if you would like a lift from the railway station.

 

 

 

2018 York Rally starts here – next meeting 9th September!

The next York Rally planning meeting will be held at the Church Hall of St Chad’s on the Knavesmire, Campleshon Road, York YO23 1EY on the 9th September 2017 at 10AM. All are welcome, especially first-timers! Please just let us know if you would like a lift from the railway station.

Building work means that our usual venue, kindly provided by Cycle Heaven of York, is unavailable – many thanks to them for offering it so generously for our meetings over the last few years. We hope St Chad’s will be equally convenient.

We’ll be looking back at 2017 and starting to plan for 2018. Provisional dates are the 23rd and 24th June 2018 but we’re still awaiting final confirmation of the Knavesmire availability (horse racing gets first priority).

Hope to see many there!

Historic bikes and racing at the York Rally 2017. Photo: Gerry Swift

2017 York Rally: coming up fast!

2017 York Rally: coming up fast!

The Rally is just weeks away now. It’s all looking good, with rides firming up, a talks list including Chris Juden and the Bishop of Selby, and much more…

Campsite – advance bookings close Friday 16th!

There’s just a week left to get your advance campsite booking in! We have to close bookings a week or so before the event to give our campsite team a chance to lay out the site, keeping groups together and juggling various other constraints. Campers with advance bookings can fast-track through campsite check-in (just go to the ‘pre booked’ desk) too. So book your space now.

Rides list filling up – including the Audax.

We still have a few rides to confirm but the rides list is filling out well. Note in particular that the traditional 100k Audax ride into the Howardian Hills is definitely happening this year – it was missed off the Audax UK website and calendar due to an oversight, but you can still enter direct with us and ride it under Audax UK rules. See the rides page for all the details of this and many other rides.

York Rally Sportive – thanks to all!

Many thanks to all who entered and helped with the fundraising Sportive which we ran in May. It was perfect riding weather into the North York Moors and we had some lovely feedback from riders. Special thanks to organiser Pete Dunn for taking on this demanding task, and to the all-volunteer team who made it happen! There are masses of pictures online here.

Talks – inc. Chris Juden and the Cycling Bishop!

We’re still finalising the talks schedule – any proposals are very welcome – but we’re delighted that among this year’s speakers will be well known cycling technical (and much else) expert Chris Juden, whose talk “Choose your discipline” will be at 5PM on Saturday. Another highlight will be Bishop John, the Cycling Bishop of Selby, whose talk will be on Saturday at 2PM. Watch the talks page on the website for a full list shortly!

Food at the Rally – and real ale…

We’ve arranged an varied line-up of catering for this year – and it’s from several reliable providers. The fantastic grill wagon that came across from the car boot sale last year after we were let down by other caterers will be back. There will also be vegan food provided by local York bike shop/cafe Bicis-y-mas, a specialist beef burger caterer, possibly also a ‘hog roast’ type outfit, and 2 coffee vans plus a coffee tricycle! And two ice cream vans, because it’s sure to be sunny… and the relaxed bar area will be supplied with local real ale from craft brewery Brew York.

Other York Rally news

  • A reminder that we have a provisional date for the 2018 York Rally already! Keep the 23rd-24th June clear in your calendar. This has been cleared with City of York Council (who handle the venue hire) but is still subject to final confirmation until the 2018 horse-racing calendar is firmed up.
  • Check out some media mentions: BikeBiz and Cycle Industry News, and in the York Press: 
  • Our final meeting before the 2017 Rally will be this Saturday – 10th June – and in a change of venue (due to local road closures for another event) we will meet at the St Chad’s Church Hall on Campleshon Road at 10AM, before walking over to the Knavesmire for a site visit. As ever, all are welcome – especially newcomers!

Many thanks again for your interest in the York Rally. We hope we’ll see you there again in 2017!

York Rally: all systems go for 2017

York Rally: all systems go for 2017

With apologies for a rather large gap since the last update, it’s time for another York Rally update. We’ve made good progress in the last few months, have attracted a major national event to the Rally, and are looking forward to the summer already!

Campsite – earlybird deadline imminent!

If you book into the campsite early it helps us enormously with the planning and financing of the Rally, and to recognise that, we reduce the prices for “earlybirds”. But earlybird discounts for the next Rally (24-25th June) close on the 1st April. So book your space now and you’ll get the reduced prices – and fast-tracked entry on the day.

Rally to host BSCA National Championships!

We’re delighted that the Rally has been chosen to host the British Schools Cycling Association (BSCA) National and Yorkshire Grasstrack Championships. This will take place in the arena on the Saturday of the Rally, and we’re also very happy that the Yorkshire Cyclo-Cross Association will be back on the Sunday. Between these two events we should have a fantastic weekend of spectacle and participation: grass roots cycling at its best.

York Rally Sportive (17th May) gearing up

Bookings are filling up (via British Cycling online – or by post if you prefer) for our next fundraising Sportive! There’s a choice of 100km or 140km rides, taking you into the beautiful North York Moors via some demanding ascents.

Even if you’re not on for riding, volunteers to help run the event are still needed. If you could help marshall, staff a feeding station or take on various tasks at ride HQ, please contact organiser Pete Dunn on 07740 171 252.

Our Beautiful City – #walkcyclefestival

The York Rally is delighted to be taking part in the “Our Beautiful City – #walkcyclefestival” celebration starting on the 28th May – a week of walks and bike rides around York. We’ll be at Rowntree Park for the opening event on Sunday the 28th May, and then we’ll be running a short bike ride to Nether Poppleton on the 29th (Bank Holiday Monday).

  • Volunteers are always welcome to help on the stand at Rowntree Park.
  • Or could you help lead the ride? York Bike Belles, the organisers, have a free ride leader training session on the evening of Wed, 6th May. Contact us if you’d like to take part.
  • Our participation in this event will reap rewards in local publicity – it has already helped us get listed among York’s community cycling groups.

Other York Rally news

  • After many months of paperwork we are finally a Community Interest Company! As I write this we’re in the process of transferring operations fully to the new structure, which both limits the personal liability of us as organisers and should make fund-raising easier. York Rally CIC will remain entirely volunteer run, and not for profit: as before, our only objective is to see the York Rally survive and prosper.
  • We have a provisional date for the 2018 York Rally already! Keep the 23rd-24th June clear in your calendar. This has been cleared with City of York Council (who handle the venue hire) but is still subject to final confirmation until the 2018 horse-racing calendar is firmed up.
  • We are always looking for new volunteers – both for general help on the day, and on the committee – so please do come along to a meeting if you’re interested, or to help at the Rally sign up here.
  • Could you give a talk at the Rally? We’re expanding our talks programme this year, and touring talks were particularly popular last time. We’ll have a projector on hand. If you’d like to give it a go, please contact Peter Eland on publicity@yorkrally.org

Many thanks again to all who entered the 2016 Photo Competition, and apologies again for the delayed judging! We will announce the winners ASAP!

Our next meeting will be at 10AM on the 13th May 2017 – please watch the website for venue details. All are welcome – especially newcomers!

Many thanks again for your interest in the York Rally. We hope we’ll see you there again in 2017!

With our best wishes for happy cycling,

The York Rally Committee
info@yorkrally.org