Over the weekend of 22nd and 23rd October VegFestUK are holding a festival at Olympia in London. On the Saturday, this will include a Vegan Athletes Summit, at which a number of prominent Vegan Athletes are speaking.
In conjunction with this, a number of Vegan cyclists will be cycling from The Vegan Society headquarters in Birmingham to Olympia, a distance of approximately 130 miles. They will be setting off early in the morning, expecting to arrive at Olympia in time for a Q and A session at 5 pm.
The ride is being sponsored by VEGANUARY – a prominent and successful Vegan charity.
The ride will also be raising money to help VEGANUARY with its continued promotion of a Vegan life style.
In riding this 130 miles, the cyclists are hoping to achieve a number of aims :
To publicise the VegFestUK festival and the Vegan Athletes Summit
Demonstrate the health benefits of a Plant Based diet – and the fact that it is perfectly possible to achieve a high level of fitness on such a diet. In fact, more so than a diet which includes animal products
To promote the wonderful results being achieved by VEGANUARY – especially in terms of encouraging people to adopt a Vegan lifestyle, thereby reducing the number of animals cruelly exploited and killed in the meat, dairy and egg industries. If everyone became Vegan, we could eliminate animal agriculture and the associated catastrophic environmental degradation
The route can be found here :
VEGANUARY was established in 2013. The co-founders were Matthew Glover and Jane Land – who now run the organisation with Clea Grady.
It is an incredibly successful Vegan advocacy – for those who don’t know, they encourage as many people as possible to try a Vegan lifestyle for the month of January – in the hope that as many as possible will continue to be Vegan.
In January this year 23,000 signed up!
According to a follow up survey in August:
63% are still vegan
75% are feeling better since participating in Jan 2016
86% are now involved in animal or vegan advocacy
63% have inspired someone else to try veganism
The number of animals saved per pound spent by Veganuary is considerable.
For details of how this is calculated, see
Much more information about Veganuary can be found at
Their target for January, 2017 is to encourage at least 50,000 people to sign up.
To achieve this they are launching an incredibly innovative advertising campaign on the London Underground this autumn – and we really want to help them by raising as much money as possible.
PLEASE help us by donating at :
The team of riders include :
MICK WALKER
Mick has now been fully Vegan for nearly 3 years. As a cyclist, he promotes the benefits of a Plant Based diet on his website www.vegancyclist.co.uk He regularly cycles long distance endurance events and has completed successfully the last three Fred Whitton Challenges (www.fredwhittonchallenge.co.uk) – and all in his 60s! He is a regular speaker at Vegan Festivals, when he promotes all aspects of Veganism as well as the health benefits of a Whole Food Plant Based Diet.
Mick lives in North Yorkshire
Twitter : @vegancyclistUK Facebook : Mick Walker (Vegan Cyclist)
ROB MASTERSON
In January 2017, Rob will have been Vegan for 4 years. During that time, he has reduced his weight from 203 lbs to 140 lbs and become a very fit cyclist. More than anything, he has noticed a considerable reduction in his recovery time after a long ride – and the fact that he is generally faster and quicker up his than his meat-eating friends! Recently, he has completed a successful four day ride from London to Brussels, raising money for the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young.
Rob is also very active campaigning for more people to become Vegan, via the Vegan Lifestyle Association (www.veganlifestyleassoc.com) as well as helping out with a number of animal rights organisations, including Exeter Friends for Animals and AnimalEquality.
Rob lives in Devon.
Facebook : Rob Masterson
JAMIE BROWN
Jamie has been vegan for 3 years in December. He made an ethical choice to stop contributing to the suffering of animals and made the transition back in 2013. He’d been eating less and less animal products after his girlfriend had shown him a few documentaries. Then after watching Earthlings, he knew I couldn’t contribute to the suffering anymore, so on Boxing day 2013 he began the journey into Veganism.
Jamie lives in London.
Facebook : Jamie Brown
JAG SARMOTTA
Jag says the three big parts of my world are his family, cycling and food. His life revolves around his son and partner. He is a passionate weekend warrior and one of the founders of local cycling collective "Boldmere Bullets” where community is at its heart, and strongly believe about eating well. He has been a vegetarian all his life and vegan for the past couple years now. Food for him is intrinsically what he is made from so he loves to cook so he knows what he’s eating and endeavours to eat fresh, local and organic.
Jag lives in Sutton Coldfield
Facebook : Jag Sarmotta
