It was only when it was over that I learned that Saturday 8th June 2024 had been designated as “Dave’s Day” a day to remember the TV presenter and half of the “Hairy Bikers” duo who died at the end of February this year following a two-year battle with cancer. Around six thousand motorcycles travelled from Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire to Scarborough on Sunday 7th April, to pay tribute and to raise funds for Cancer Research UK and following the success of the event, Dave’s wife Liliana along with his fellow Biker Si King organized the event in June when forty-five thousand motorcyclists travelled from London to Dave’s home town of Barrow in Furness, headed up by Si King.
The event was raising funds for the NSPCC and Cancer Research and there are a lot of photographs and video clips of this most amazing event on social media, which are well worth watching. I have supplied a link for a clip of the bikes leaving the Burton in Kendal Motorway Services.
Liliana climbed on the back of Si King’s bike to ride the last bit of the journey.
Who was Dave Myers? Born in Barrow in Furness in September 1957, the son of a foreman at the local paper mill, Dave became a carer for his mother at the age of twelve when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He attended Goldsmith University in London where he bought his first motorcycle. With his degree under his belt, he became a professional makeup artist and it was here that he met Si King in 1995.
The two friends started appearing on television as “The Hairy Bikers” at the beginning of the present century and have entertained thousands of people for over twenty years on their motorcycle journeys through some of the world’s most scenic countryside, cooking up gourmet meals in some unlikely places and experiencing the culture of the places they visited.
It seems to me that in our modern world we are surrounded by people whose egos are so big that they have to have the limelight focussing on them all the time, and that reflects on society at large. What I always liked about watching the Hairy Bikers was that they were just two ordinary blokes, who seemed to have a glorious knack of combining their greatest passions, cooking and riding motorcycles and entertaining us, while never appearing to polish their egos. I can remember almost feeling my arteries hardening while these two masculine cooks chucked a block of butter into a pan without a care for healthy eating, and I would love to have tasted some of their creations. Their cookbooks sit proudly on my shelves, and I have made some of their recipes myself.
Dave Myers is the sort of role model I love and aspire to be like, and as I reflect on what I witnessed on Saturday 8th June, I try to imagine Jesus, doing good, serving people, caring for their needs, just being an ordinary bloke in an extraordinary way, and if I can get anywhere near that in my life, I believe that I will have done alright.