The Tour de Tooting takes to the roads on July 3, the festival is a celebration of community, wellbeing and sustainability with a love of everything on wheels and no motor
The Tour de Tooting builds on the conventional format of a cycle ride with an extra spin. Community inventiveness combines fun, wellbeing, cycling, wheel mechanics, health and quieter, greener streets to celebrate the wheels in our lives. Event organiser and co-founder of Transition Town Tooting (TTT), Lucy Neal explains:
“Wheels are a symbol of change. One of the greatest of human inventions and associated with independence and freedom. The Tour de Tooting creates opportunities to have fun with people of all ages and across all cultures to celebrate wheels of all sizes and uses. Combined with social connection, physical activity is increasingly recognised as a source not just of our health and happiness, but of a greener, safer, lower carbon world. Together, we can reinvent The Wheel!”
Richard Couldrey, TTT’s Co-Chair adds: “It’s logistically challenging to close roads for a Tour de France-style event, so we thought to pilot something this year, working with Tooting organisations and residents, to guage people’s interest and enthusiasm for an expanded event next year in 2017.”
Starting at 2pm on Sunday July 3, the Grand Parade of Wheels takes to the road: handmade, colourful, decorated, re-invented, buggies, trolleys, scooters, wheelchairs, rickshaws, penny farthings, tandems, bicycles and wheelbarrows. The Parade finishes at Fishponds Fields for a collective ‘Sharing Picnic’.
The Route
Working in collaboration with Transport for London, Wandsworth Council, local police and Emergency Services, the route will begin from Franciscan Road down Totterdown Street across Upper Tooting Road to Broadwater Road, Fishponds Road, Hebdon Road and into Fishponds Field.
About Transition Town Tooting
Transition Town Tooting (TTT) is a local community group broadly focusing on “Making Change in how we live, where we live in light of Climate Change”. TTT has grown with and within Tooting, collaborating with many local groups on diverse projects including; the award winning annual Tooting Foodival, Trashcatchers’ Carnival in 2010 that saw the opening of the High Street for the community for one magical moment, Tooting Community Garden, Outdoor Learning with Gatton School, Rooting in Tooting, quarterly Restart Parties and many more.
http://transitiontowntooting.blogspot.co.uk/
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