Persuade Southern Rail to carry bikes on the day of the London to Brighton ride

Bikes are banned from Southern Rail on the day of the British Heart Foundation London to Brighton ride - in stark contrast to the last time I rode it when thousands went up to Clapham Junction on trains specially adapted.

Seats had been taken out in half the train for bike storage - cyclists got to London safely without polluting the environment - and the train company sold huge numbers of tickets for early trains on a Sunday morning.

Now, the only way to get to the start is a fleet of coaches put on by the British Heart Foundation or taking a folding bike on the train as I did. Vast numbers of participants ended up puting bikes in cars or vans to get there because there was no usable public transport option.

Since 1976 nearly a million riders have taken part in the ride. Our founding motto was Bikes for Clean cities. Now, thanks to Southern’s lack of co-operation unnecessary pollution is being created, time and money wasted.

The brilliant Heart Foundation organising team tried asking Southern to put on special trains for riders as used to happen but they are not interested.

It’s an outageous state of affairs - thousands of riders needing to get to London early on a Sunday - and a direct train service but an operator not prepared to accommodate them.