This weekend (18-19 September 2010) Bankstone will lead a flotilla of around a dozen monkey bikes 250 miles round Yorkshire, raising money for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance service (YAA). Along the way they’ll be stopping off at local motorcycle-related businesses who have pledged to contribute to their fundraising efforts, hence the name of the event: Monkey Business.

Bankstone director Dickon Tysoe will be among those riding miniature motorcycles ranging from a perfectly adequate 50cc to a rip-roaring 125cc during the two-day charity ride. “We’re determined to raise £10,000,” he says, “or look very silly trying.”

The Monkey Business motorcade will also include a lead car, support vehicles and MPVs ferrying fellow fundraisers – along with the YAA’s mascot, a seven-foot bear called Bernie, and others dressed as recycling bins, mobile phones, attractive young women holding collecting tins, etc.

Stops along the way include:

Bankstone, Brighouse, Saturday a.m.
Websters Insurance, Brighouse, Saturday a.m.
Colin Appleyard Motorcycles, Keighley, Saturday a.m.
Moto Strada Motorcycles, Ilkley, Saturday a.m.
NCi, Harrogate, Sat lunch
Simon Bailes, Northallerton, Saturday p.m.
Overnight Stop, Scarborough, Saturday night
Oliver’s Mount Race Circuit, Scarborough, Sunday a.m.
U-Pull-It, York, Saturday p.m.
Harley Davison Dealership, Leeds, Sunday a.m.
Northern Assessors, Huddersfield, Sunday a.m.
BLD, Brighouse, Sun lunch (BBQ)

Glorious Monkey Leader Dickon Tysoe has been tinkering furiously with the road map in the final days before departure (i.e. tinkering with a map that has roads on it, rather than some vague political/diplomatic programme) to ensure the monkeybikers take in some of Yorkshire’s finest scenery, pie shops, filling stations, engine-killing one in three ascents, his house, etc.

Among the other firms taking part are motorcycle specialists BLD (who are providing a barbeque for saddle sore monkeybikers on Sunday afternoon), Bikesure, Premier Medical Group, Copart, Bott & Co, Motorbelle, Easy Rider and Steve Pepper Training Associates.

Anyone who would like to support Bankstone’s fundraising efforts can visit charity donations website Just Giving (see www.justgiving.com/monkeymoviestars) and check out the good-hearted abuse posted by previous donors.

Paul Gowland, fundraising director of YAA, comments “It costs us £7,200 per day to keep our helicopters and highly trained paramedics in the air. But this allows us to attend over 1000 incidents each year and save many lives that might otherwise have been lost. We wish everyone involved in Monkey Business the very best of luck. Our sincere thanks go to Dickon and his team for their continued support of our life-saving charity.”

For further information on Bankstone see: www.bankstone.co.uk
For more on Yorkshire Air Ambulance see: www.yorkshireairambulance.org.uk

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