Fair post Kopite, I also rode the M25 Sunday and enjoyed the day, if I may quote a part of your post,
I was on the M25 on Sunday. There was no fee, there were buckets around but they were not waved in your face. If you wanted to give you could. There were patches on sale and profits would go to the RBL. The idea was to create a giant poppy on the M25 to show respect on the remembrance Sunday, after all not everybody goes to a church service! The "Ring of Red" was completed and we all went home! There was nowhere near the 15000 wanted to form the "ring" so the bikes spaced out a little more.
If I might add,
on the day £6,579.04 was raised in donations from riders and members of the public and they had no idea of what we were doing, the money is still coming in from sales of patches etc. We all have a choice in what we do in our spare time and with a few spare quid we have, at no time did I intend to spend the day riding the M25, we did our stint, M4 Reading to M25 South Mimms services, 12.30pm until 1pm after that it was a bomb burst to carry on to do what and ride where you wanted, I spent the rest of the day riding the city area of London always an experience
As Kopite said this wasn't a money making ride, it was a record attempt and this was a way to show our respect while doing it, we rode our bikes in a somewhat bigger than average ride out and tried to set a new world record of the biggest poppy ever, this was achived so we were told and without a doubt the majority of riders found the whole day most enjoyable and many are looking forward to next years attempt to re-set the record.
As for 15,000 bikes, that was a hoped for number and there's not one person who thought that number had been achieved not even from the organisers but then the whole thing was organised in less than 4 weeks so for it to of happened at all was something of a miracle.
So there you go, a ride out that WASN'T put together to raise funds, it was to set a record and if a few quid was raised while doing it then all well and good, the only requests from the organisers were that riders all wore something red and we each had a poppy, I can't see anything to knock there.
