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The Longest Day 2008.

John O'Groats to LandsEnd in under 24hrs.

The Longest Day 2009.

Ride Five Capitals: Edinburgh to Belfast to Dublin to Cardiff to London in under 24hrs.

The Longest Day 2010.

Chase the Sun: From Lowestoft at sunrise to Guarran Point in Dingle by Sunset the same day.

The Longest Day

What is it and who are we?

Well, apart from being, erm, the longest day of the year, June 21st in the Northern Hemisphere, it is also the name of our endurance motorcycle charity ride.

What we all have in common is a love of motorcycling, a love of life, and a desire to offer assistance to those whom we can help.

How did it all begin?

Well, once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away (well, on xrv.org.uk actually), a man called Stanbloke first suggested doing an Iron Butt type ride, and posted a link to their website.

Various route options were given on the site, including the perennial classic, The John O'Groats to LandsEnd run. A trip from the very top to the very bottom of the island. In under 24 hours. Who could resist!

Being bikers, various xrv members got very excited about spending a long day in the saddle!

One of these rabble was a funny little german man, with a strange accent, called Pete, who said he would do the ride with his long suffering and saintly wife Debs, and he would get some sponsorship while doing it. They were intending to raise money for Martlets Hospice, who had recently done a wonderful job in looking after Deb's dad.

Robster, another of the rabble, suggested riders could do the ride for various individual charities.

Sharrie and Chad, two more xrv rabble rousers, said they would support Pete's cause, and because Chad is very very big and very very scary everyone agreed they too would raise money for Martlets, or he would just pick them up by the ankles and shake the money out of their pockets and give it to Pete anyhow!

Sharrie, given to changing her mind at the last minute, suggested that MacMillan Cancer Support would be a good charity as they have links with Martlets and are a national organisation. She's full of good ideas that one!

Chad, who is also full of ideas, most of them unmentionable, suggested we set up, and I quote,

''one of those whayjacall it thingies for the money, ya know, where ya click the whazit and jobs a goodun''!!

Luckily, some of the xrv regulars can speak Chad, and knew he was talking about setting up an online page, so people could donate on line. Sharrie suggested Justgiving. Robster got on the case and set up a justgiving website at www.justgiving.com/thelongestday2008 and designed the graphics we would use on the ride.

Everything took place in the virtual reality that is XRV, and involved 14,566 threads and 12,345,5676 individual posts, arguements, discussions, agreements and suggestions, with a small army of people in the background doing various tasks, making calls, sending emails, talking to sponsors, popping migraine tablets and tidying up the toys that occasionally got thrown out of the pram! At one point we even had a meeting. A proper honest to God meeting, in real life, in person. In a pub. I remember lots of drinking and eating some of the nicest pork crackling Ive ever tasted. And er, well, erm, we must have also had a meeting about stuff. Obviously. Well, I mean, who would ride down to the New Forest, on a lovely sunny day, meet up with Stormforce, Mel, Annette, Chunk and a few others, and drink and eat all evening and do no work. Hah. Who indeed!!!! Chad rode a KTM at the time. It broke on the way so he missed the meeting. But don't say I mentioned it. It's still a sore subject.

And on that first Longest Day, back in 2008, the xrv rabble rousers went forth, and made a sublime and stunning success of the inaugural event.

We raised £15,123.96 in hard cash and £2,476.54 in giftaid for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Not bad for a bunch of hairy arsed bikers who set out to have a long day in the saddle and raise a bit of money for charity in the process.

The rest, as they say, is history.

2009 saw us Ride Five Capitals: Edinburgh to Belfast to Dublin to Cardiff to London in under 24 hours. This was in aid of Make A Wish Foundation. We raised, including giftaid, a total of £22,700.

So far the total raised by The Longest Day endurance motorcycle charity event is: £40,300.

In 2010, we will be riding from Lowestoft to Guarran Point in the west of Ireland in under 24hrs, Chase The Sun, in aid of Help for Heros.

You can click on the bikes in the main menu to be taken to a report of The Longest Day rides we have done so far.

To join us, go to www.thelongestday.org.uk and register.

To sponsor us go to www.justgiving.com/tld2010