Riders Stories

RAFA Easter Egg Run

Kev Kerry

The inaugural run of the RAFA (Royal Air Force Association) Easter Egg Run was held on the April 5th 2009. Unfortunately it was held on the same day as the Bottesford Run but Lizzie and I had already done that run many times, so we decided to take the plunge and try out this new one to RAF Cosford Air Museum . The aim was to raise as much money as possible for servicemen and women. We were also asked to bring along Easter Eggs for RAF families and injured personnel at Headley Court and Selly Oak Hospitals. Pete and Sally were also involved with the marshalling and asked if I would help to get the bikes out of Leicester.

It was an absolutely glorious day when we arrived at the Walkers Stadium to find approximately 150 bikes waiting to be escorted onto the M69! Before leaving I distributed RAFA ribbon and flags for everyone to tie onto their bikes etc. When we have ridden on similar runs before people are always curious as to why we are riding in convoy. Then we all made our way onto the motorway.

It took us about 90 minutes to get to the football stadium at Shrewsbury and what a sight we saw when we turned into the car park. There we found around 2000 bikes, it was such a fantastic sight. The RAFA had arranged for at least 4 different runs in from Newtown (Powys-Wales), Birmingham, Wrexham, Wolverhampton, Doncaster as well as Leicester. I think there were a few others as well.

From there at approximately 11am we were escorted out onto the M54 and onto RAF Cosford. We were then allowed to wander freely (literally) around three hangars of various aircraft at the Museum. One hangar is the Cold War Museum, which turned out to be extremely interesting. It was also something else to be able to stand underneath a Vulcan! We were also able to enjoy a light lunch etc at the lovely café/restaurant at the Museum.

I am told that the RAFA has managed to raise in the region of £10,000 which is fantastic.
They are planning to do this run again next year on the 28th March 2010, so maybe we could have a bigger turn out from the Fosse Riders !