Blog. Le Tour de Cuisine raised over £40,000

On Monday 4th June 206 cyclists set off on our Le Tour de Cuisine Cotswold Cycle Challenge. The event was sponsored by Calcot, Sky and Technogym and raised over £40,000 and still counting!

Sixty cyclists enjoed a delicious pasta supper at The Gumstool Inn in the grounds of the Calcot Manor hotel on Sunday evening. Loading up on carbs and swapping top cycling tips ahead of the big day. The pasta supper was part of the HA Social Sunday UK wide events and Calcot’s donated £1,120, all the proceeds from the three-course meal to our charity.

With an 8am, some having made the three hour car journey up from London that morning, everyone was in high spirits despite what lay ahead! With a choice of 100, 60, 40 or 20 mile challenge, the ride was certainly tougher this year, but the hospitality along the way was, as you would expect, excellent! There were feeding stations at The Village Hall in Barnsley, catered for by the team at Barnsley House, as well as another at The Painswick. Riders also enjoyed refreshments laid on by The Protein Ball Company, Nestlé and Creed Foodservice. Meanwhile, some cyclists stopped for what was described as ‘the best mac n cheese ever’ at Whatley Manor. Some even ended up doing 40 extra miles just so that they could double back to Whatley for an extra helping!

At the finishing line everyone received a medal and enjoyed a glass of Taittinger Champagne, courtesy of Hatch Mansfield. Calcot also laid on a great BBQ with the kind help of Creed Foodservice team and the cyclists sat in the hotel garden enjoying the sunshine as they waited for their team mates to return. Teams who took part included Sky, the Calcot Collection, Bespoke Hotels, CH&Co Group, Chewton Glen, Creed Foodservice, Exclusive Hotels, Gold Key Media, Greenclose Hotels, Lucknam Park, Red Carnation Hotels, The Arch, The Pig Hotels, Vacherin, Preferred Hotels & Resorts, Farncombe Estate, The Vineyard, Firmdale Hotels, Total Produce and The Goring.

This was truly a day to celebrate the industry we work in and it was humbling to welcome back our cyclists after an extremely tough challenge.

Well done to everyone who participated, you really are all amazing and such an inspiration!

Here’s to Le Tour de Cuisine Cotswold Cycle Challenge 2019 – if you would like to join in the fun next year and raise some funds for the charity, please contact the Get Involved team.