{"id":568979,"date":"2026-05-06T09:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/568979\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T09:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:15:08","slug":"greg-jamess-comic-relief-bike-sells-for-11k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/568979\/","title":{"rendered":"Greg James&#8217;s Comic Relief bike sells for \u00a311k"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mercian Cycles, which has been making bikes since 1946 and was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cze63n0zynjo\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">rescued from liquidation in 2024<\/a>, built the lightweight steel-framed, hand-painted red tandem to James&#8217;s exact dimensions, along with a blue back-up bike.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The company also provided four standard bikes used by those joining James on the challenge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Before setting off from Weymouth on 13 March, James hailed the bike as a &#8220;beautiful thing&#8221; that will &#8220;hopefully help me raise a huge sum of money for Comic Relief.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Smith said the Comic Relief commission was &#8220;instantly very exciting&#8221; and commended the radio presenter for a &#8220;brilliant&#8221; achievement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s amazing on many different levels. He raised an incredible amount &#8211; four million pounds,&#8221; said Smith, who said the build had raised the firm&#8217;s profile.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">During his tearful arrival into Murrayfield Stadium on Red Nose Day, 20 March, James said the ride had been a &#8220;struggle&#8221; but an &#8220;amazing&#8221; experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The thing I&#8217;ll remember the most is seeing the joy from everyone and pushing through the pain to get to that joy,&#8221; he told BBC Radio 1 listeners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercian Cycles, which has been making bikes since 1946 and was rescued from liquidation in 2024, built the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-568979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}