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Abi Glover, Senior Events & Digital Fundraising Officer talks all things Tour de LandAid

The history, success, and inspiration behind the property cycling challenge of the year.

My name is Abi Glover and I am the Senior Events & Digital Fundraising Officer at LandAid. As part of my role I have the exciting job of looking after our yearly cycling challenge, Tour de LandAid. This is something that I am both personally and professionally passionate about.

Given we are now in the third year of the event, I wanted to take time to reflect on it’s success and growth, and to inspire you to get involved this summer. 
We started Tour de LandAid three years ago and at the time, it felt like a total no brainer to launch a new event that paired the property and wider built environment industry’s passion for cycling, with raising money to support youth homelessness projects.
The first ever Tour de LandAid was in 2021. 136 riders took part and the effort they put into fundraising and cycling was incredible. We wondered if the event would have the same success once lockdown was over and we were back to ‘normal’ life. However, I was pleased to see how despite regaining a sense of normality after the pandemic, last year, the event grew even larger. 
I love zipping about on my bike in North London, but I was totally humbled by the distances our riders covered, cycling a total of 106,433km across 3 weeks! We also had lots of great feedback from people who weren’t keen cyclists but got into the spirit of the event and enjoyed the time on their bikes more than they expected. At LandAid we want our events to be as inclusive as possible, so I’m really pleased people feel that they can get involved, no matter what level they are at.

This year we have been inspired to make the event even more inclusive and representative of the world of cycling.

Therefore, we’ve made some key changes. The event is now only a week long which we hope will encourage more people to join us and it follows the dates of the women’s cycling competition, Tour de France Femmes.
Women returned to the Tour de France in 2022 after a 33-year hiatus due to a lack of financial backing. The increasing interest in women’s sport over the last few years has been so exciting to watch. We really wanted to honour this through our event. It’s inspiring to think about how little girls are now seeing themselves represented in a much wider variety of sports. It wasn’t something I really saw when I was little, and I get quite emotional thinking about how quickly that is now changing. 

Yet, we cannot forget that while our event celebrates cycling, and now women’s cycling in particular, the core of Tour de LandAid is about supporting young people between 16-25 years experiencing homelessness across the UK.

Working at LandAid, I am surrounded by a team who care so deeply about providing life changing support to young people who haven’t had the opportunities they deserve. Youth homelessness continues to rise across the UK. Last year, 129,000 young people approached their local council for housing support. Sadly, we know this is just the tip of the iceberg with those sleeping in unstable accommodation, for example hostels or friend’s sofas, unaccounted for in these figures.
At LandAid we believe this needs to change!
Someone who embodied this passion was our dear colleague Kevin Hunter, former Head of Programmes and Impact, who passed away last month. Kev cared so deeply about improving the lives of young people and made such a big impact on all of us at LandAid. 
This year, our own Tour de LandAid team, made up of LandAid colleagues, will be taking part to honour our friend Kev and to raise money for a project that he pioneered.  Kev was a keen cyclist and it feels great to be able to honour him in this way. 

Together we can get out, get active, and rally support to end youth homelessness. 

Tour de LandAid takes place from 24-31 July

We would love for you to sign up and join us. Register either as part of a team or individually.

Find all the details you need here.