Ride the Change 2026: The North East Edition
Ride the Change 2026: The North East Edition
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Ride the Change is a four-day, community-led event on bikes, connecting people, places and nature.
This year, we'll ride through beautiful and varied landscapes of East & North Yorkshire, and Tyne & Wear, visiting regenerative farms, rewilding sites, and community led climate & nature projects on route. We'll even enjoy some inspirational evening social events too.
The route will look something like this (exact distances TBC):
- Day 1 - Thursday 24th September: York to Scarborough (75 km / 47 miles).
Featuring Circular Malton & Norton, SeaGrown, CaVCA, and North York Moors. - Day 2: Friday 25th September: Scarborough to Whitby (68km / 42 miles)
Featuring a trail clean session in Dalby Forest, Linking Levisham, and our own Soap Box Night. - Day 3: Saturday 26th September: Whitby to Hartlepool (75 km / 47 miles)
Featuring Middlesborough Environment City, Seagrass Nursery, Greatham Marsh Transformation project, and Leaving it Better film screening. - Day 4: Sunday 27th September: Hartlepool to Newcastle (65 km / 41 miles)
Featuring Birds Bikes Bees and Trees and Baltic Centre.
Get your tickets now!
Who is it for?
Ride the Change is for people who care about climate and nature, like to ride bikes, and want to connect with others through a shared purpose and a healthy challenge. We create space for deep social connection and important conversations, helping us all to be more successful in driving the change that our world so needs.
You might be an activist, policy maker, investor, student, community organiser, consultant, creative, or anything in between - what matters is that you’re passionate about making our world a healthier, happier, fairer place, and are curious to learn from others across the spectrum.
What it is:
- Self-supported - we're a community who all look out for and support each other, whether that be through navigating, fixing punctures, or taking a shift driving the bag-drop van. We're all in this together. NB there is no official support team or vehicle.
- Multi-day - you can join for one day or all four - we encourage joining for as long as possible, allowing time to really get away from the everyday noise and for relationships to flourish.
- Local projects - we’ll be incorporating some great projects on route - more info below. We might even throw in a spot of volunteering, so we can really get our hands dirty in supporting those we visit. The goal is to connect local riders to amazing projects near where they live, and to give everyone plenty of positive ideas to chat about as we cycle - and beyond.
- Evening social events - this year we’ll feature an informal social, our popular Soap Box Night, volunteering opportunities, and more - it’s gonna be jam packed, but all evening events are optional!
- Mostly roads - while there might be short bits off-road, most of the route is through quiet roads and cycle routes.
Subsidised tickets:
We don't want money to be a barrier to anyone joining the ride, and are also really keen to see greater diversity on the ride, opening up the opportunity for us to all learn from and inspire each other, no matter what our financial situation.
That’s why we’ve included a “Pay it forward" option; for each person buying one of these tickets, we’ll make another low income ticket available to those who can't afford the full price.
We currently have 3 fully subsidised tickets available, if you'd like one of these please email us at hello@ridethechange.org to ask about a subsidised ticket.
What’s included:
GPX files for a well-planned route for each of the 4 days
Evening events - including film screenings and talks from inspiring local projects, as well as our much-loved Soap Box night, when everyone has a chance to say their bit.
Bag transport from start to finish location each day (included in full event tickets only, not included in one-day tickets)
Patch to sew onto your cycling cap (introducing circularity to our merch!)
Bike number
A rider pack filled with information and advice, including accommodation recommendations
Pre- and post-ride socials, both online and in person
Invite to the RtC26 event WhatsApp group
What’s not included:
Accommodation: While we will share a list of recommendations for each night, you choose and book your own accommodation according to your budget / taste.
Food: We’ll also make recommendations for lunch stops, but it’s up to you to pay for these. We've lined up caterers for each evening meal, which can be purchased separately for roughly £10 per meal.
Travel: You’re responsible for getting to the start and home from the finish — but we’ll help coordinate car shares and lift shares where we can.
Bike & kit: You need to bring your own equipment and spare parts.
Insurance: We recommend you get your own bike and 3rd party insurance for the ride
This is a non-profit event. The ticket price is set to cover the core costs of delivering the ride (insurance, website hosting, caps, bike numbers, signage, venue bookings), if there is any surplus it will be used to build up a reserve for organising future rides, ensuring greater financial sustainability of Ride the Change itself.
Membership to Ride the Change:
- Supporting Ride the Change and helping us to continue bringing good people and projects together.
- Opportunities to join the core volunteer team planning next year's ride.
- Input onto the date and route decisions for next year's ride.
- Early access to tickets for next year's ride.
- Membership to the members WhatsApp group.
- Invites to regular social rides throughout the year - our goal is to have at least one per season, in as many areas as our community can organise!
Not able to join this year? Sign up to our mailing list to be first to hear about next year's ride.