Bike Shed & Team Rubicon UK Motorcycle volunteers fighting the pandemic, one urgent delivery at time

This Article was first published in The Road magazine in June 2020. The situation with the Covid-19 pandemic has deteriorated since then and the service is even more in demand. During this time the brilliant charity formerly known as team Rubicon UK has been renamed RE:ACT Disaster Response.

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The phone vibrates. I look at the notification screen: it’s the Gophr courier app. The task is to ride to Royal Free Hospital, collect an oximeter test kit supplied by the medical charity Covid Crisis Rescue, and deliver it to a patient in distress in West London, all in 90 minutes. The lifesaving piece of equipment will help to determine whether they need to go to hospital.

For the past few weeks* I’ve been one of around 800 motorcyclists volunteering with Bike Shed Motorcycle Community Response, an initiative spanning England, Wales and Scotland and offering free courier like services to community groups and individuals fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of the tasks entail transporting PPE and scrubs to NHS staff and care home workers, as well as food and medicines to those who need them. Supported by Team Rubicon, the disaster relief charity run by veterans, and the courier app Gohpr repurposed for voluntary tasks, it’s a slick operation.

As Vikki and Dutch Van Someren, the couple who run the Bike Shed, have explained: “When it all goes wrong, it’s only right that those of us who are able to help, step up to do our part to support the community, so when Bike Shed was forced to close its doors in London we decided to mobilise our community into a volunteer riders’ group, to provide free courier-style services to support the fight against Covid-19”.

“Motorcycles are used by first responders, couriers and food delivery drivers because they are fast and efficient, so we are using our bikes to collect PPE parts for assembly, deliver assembled PPE gear to front-line healthcare workers, along with food, medicine, and distributing NHS lung-capacity testing kits, to see which unwell people might be better off in hospital than at home.”

Riding through the streets of locked down London with a piece of lifesaving equipment in a pannier is an interesting experience. One feels a great sense of responsibility. One is hyper aware of one’s surroundings due to the need to get to the destination efficiently and safely. And one is proud to play one’s role in fighting one of the biggest challenges the world has faced in decades. The mantra “think globally, act locally” has never felt more true.

Bikers are a responsive bunch. We spend half of our lives running charity fundraisers, doing toy runs for kids in need or volunteering as event marshals or Blood Bikers. So it’s not surprising that hundreds of us have signed up to do what we can to fight this awful pandemic. Interacting from a distance with medical personnel, volunteer PPE makers and other beneficiaries of this service, I have experienced something which has been in short supply of late: hope. I’ve seen it in the faces of others too. Thank you Vikki, Dutch, the rest of the Bike Shed team and Team Rubicon for making this possible.

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* dates relate to June 2020