This was a special saturday ride instead of a run. And it was glorious.

We met at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning, well 9am but it felt pretty early to me. After a quick bike check and intro we saddled up and mosied on out.

We followed route 3 via Victoria Park, the Whitchurch Way and then out through the lanes to Chew Magna. A beautiful ride through the avon countryside. Thanks to Matt for back marking and making double trips up the hills.

At the farm we split into 2 groups, 1 clearing the new packing shed and 1 planting a whole field of leeks. Midway through the day we stopped for some delicious soup and salad, plus brownies thanks to Nicole. Fully fueled we got stuck back into the task, completing the leeks and finding enough time to plant hundreds of lettuce. The packing shed team had a great time assembling shelves.

After the days farming was done we got back on our bikes and headed back. Despite one minor wrong turn up a massive hill and couple of mechanicals on the way we cruised back into Bristol in one piece. Hundreds of leeks but no punctures! All in all, an awesome day out. We'll be back!

A super six GoodGymers ran 9.4k to the Knowle West Childrens Centre to help them prepare a Wildflower Area

What a wonderful run and task!

Meeting at Roll For The Soul, we welcomed Steve Coman from London, who usually runs with GG Islington and GG Camden, who was in Bristol to see family, take in a concert and do a spot of GoodGym tourism as part of the seemingly ever increasing London-Bristol GoodGym Exchange. Great to have you along Steve!

We stuck together for a slightly longer than usual run, mainly flat but with a nasty hill up over the Northern Slopes as we approached our destination.

We were met at the Knowle West Childrens Centre by our fabulous task hosts - Lucy, Tina and Sarah - who showed us the brilliant play area at the Centre and outlined our twofold task to us:

• Richard, Mike and Steve set about digging and chopping out dock leaves which had somewhat taken over the wildflower area.
• Leslie, Chris and Dave tackled the removal of weeds and grass from around a group of fruit trees before laying and spreading some fresh mulch - we love mulch! - around the trees.

Given the longer run our time on the task was limited but did we smash it? Of course we did!

There was just enough time to enjoy some great refreshments of juice, biscuits and ginger cake before heading back into town for a cool down, stretches and lunch.

A lovely task for a lovely community group, who's amazing work can be seen at www.knowlewestchildrenscentre.bristol.sch.uk

Thanks to Lucy for sharing some great photos with us!

An almighty 32 people gathered at Vivo for a run to a local food bank. What a great turnout, including several newbies - welcome to the GoodGym gang!

We set off at a sprightly pace to head to the food bank, which is based at a big yellow storage warehouse, however when we got there, our contact Alan was nowhere to be seen. We called him but got a voice mail message.

Oh no! Back up plan A (litter picking) was not applicable as I didn't have any bin bags or gloves, so we all grabbed a little bit of litter as we ran to make back up plan B happen (circuits around the city). We headed to a large open space at Temple Quay where two teams started to do a bit of shuttle running and lunges... but then Alan called back! And so we ran back to the bank where we met up with him. The fault was mine - I'd underestimated the pace that we were going to run at so we were early. I'm so sorry for all that extra running.

At the food bank we were tasked with sorting donated goods in to various types (canned goods, dried goods, toiletries, etc). Because this was one of those days, the task was completed in double quick time, so it seemed that no sooner had we arrived that we were leaving again, to re-tread some now very familiar routes back to Queens Square where we stretched out and finished our run.

A couple of massive congrats:
Ciara for getting to the food bank
Sion for her 50th run
Paul for his 100th run All the newbies for sticking with us
Everyone else who keeps coming back to GoodGym.

You all rock big time. Come back next week and rock some more!!!

On this Saturday run we headed to Bramble Hill in south Bristol.

We met at Roll for the Soul at 11am and headed out south through Queen's Square and Victoria Park to the farm. This week's task was to chop back some brambles to create a new area for pigs in the farm. The plan was that if we made a start setting out the fences the pigs would do the rest clearing the brambles.

The sun was beating down and it felt like a proper summer's day as we got stuck into the task. We managed to get the whole area in time - a great effort, and finished just in time to grab a slice of orange, compare bramble scratches and then head back to Roll for the Soul. Great job everyone!

And there was a goat!