Our riders and coordinators are having a well deserved rest after two incredibly busy weekends — so busy in fact that we had to put extra bikes on the road to cope with the workload. At one point over the easter weekend the coordinator had 15 jobs on the go at once.

Freewheelers works from 7:00pm to 7:00am in the week, but we do 24 hours at weekends and bank holidays. The past two weekends have both been sandwiched with Friday and Monday holidays, meaning that on both occasions we were on duty, non-stop, from 7:00pm on Thursday to 7:00am on Tuesday — a total of 108 hours.

Over the Easter holiday weekend we did 96 calls - a record for us. In comparison we did 64 calls over the same weekend in 2010. Over the Royal Wedding and May bank holiday weekend we did 85 calls. We normally have three bikes on the road in Bristol, Bath and Somerset, but our spare bikes were pressed into duty to stop the duty riders getting too exhausted. The contribution of our coordinators shouldn't be overlooked either — each incoming call from a hospital requesting our services means that the coordinator has to call the duty rider, then wait for the rider to report that they have picked up, then delivered, and finally are they safe back home. If jobs aren't straightforward, which sometimes happens, then the coordinator might have to make more calls to chase things through.