Introducing Co-Captain - Rob Boyns

Rob Boyns

I've always been interested in sport and have played quite a bit of rugby in my time. So I've been involved in the rugby community since being a school boy.  After my ex-wife died in an accident, my daughter came to live with me full time and she was just so brave and resilient that I felt I wanted to give something back a little - even though we had no longer been together.

I therefore did my first triathlon and raised some money for the intensive care unit where sadly her mother had spent a couple of days before passing away. So that was a new challenge for me, and I had a couple of former rugby players who helped me along the journey for that. I thought that was the best way that I could give something back. I enjoyed doing the triathlons and that went from raising money for the hospital to raising money for different charities over a number of years.

10 Ironmans later, and Russell Kesley (one of the founders of the Doddie Ride) a friend of mine that I was in university with got wind that I was doing these events and raising money for charities. He said: "Do you fancy creating a team from Ruthin?". That's where I live and where I used to play rugby before. He suggested creating a team, raising some money, joining the Doddie ride and coming to our club, giving something back to our community. 

I think traditionally, because of the nature of the rides, they would tend to go from Edinburgh to Cardiff or vice versa as quickly as they could, because the support network wasn't developed. However, as part of our little region here, we decided to engage with the local community and the schools a bit more. We got the fire brigade involved, we got the Mayor involved, we went around the schools and were blown away with the engagement. It was brilliant. It was great for the schools, because we were just coming out of Covid and they hadn't really seen anyone of any stature for two years. Suddenly, they've got Rob Wainwright turning up with Martin Johnson; people who were 6ft 4, weighing 20 stone, turning up to a village school where very little English was spoken. They're seeing these giants of men coming in to visit them and it was just an amazing experience for them, for the teachers and for us. 

Last year, Rob asked me if I would be interested in becoming team manager for Wales. I went up to Coll to meet him and that was a lovely experience. I said; "Let me speak to the team that I was involved in last year and see what they think about the whole thing. But yes, you know, on paper, it sounds a good idea and I'd like to be able to contribute. So I spoke to the guys back at base and they said they'd back me if I went down that route. So I set off in the second year to recruit as many clubs as I could, engage with as many schools as I could. One of the things I'm most proud of is getting Kidwelly Rugby Club engaged which is the town where I grew up in West Wales. It's 150 miles away, but we got them engaged, they hosted it. We also engaged with about seven or eight schools and it went to another level again and we had all the internationals visiting them and many of the other teams came to visit them as well and everyone was blown away with it. I think between the app and with the clubs engagement Wales went up to about 10% of the turnover of the charity, which was about 200k, which is unbelievable really for a very small country. The engagement was massive, everyone was really enthused about it all. 

I then found out that I didn't have a team to ride with. So Rob asked me onto the 'core' team. I was just blown away  to be surrounded by these icons! Growing up, our icon was Ray Gravell, who was a British and Irish Lions' centre. He was like an immense character, immense rugby player, and a TV personality as well. He was like he was our Father Christmas in school when we grew up.

He was an amazing person. So I sort of understand Doddie, Doddie's nature and appeal. Even though I've never met him, I understand what sort of person he is from knowing Ray Gravell. And I understand from doing charity events how important it is that you make a small contribution and how people benefit. But I just didn't want to benefit, use my time to benefit people financially. I wanted to engage with communities as well. That is just as important to me so that we get that community engagement and raise awareness from an early age.

For this year, we've developed a schools' pack. We're going to send that out to all the schools we're going to visit. And we're going to do about seven or eight schools this year, as well. So I'm in another team this year as you know with you which is exciting.

ON HOW THIS RIDE CAME ABOUT

Well, having done the last two Doddie rides and being in the core team last year with Rob Wainwright, we also had Ian Barr, who was president of the Scottish Rugby Union at the time.

I guess Ian and I became instant friends and we looked after each other on the ride. Ian worked ever so hard because he had all the complications with his bike, which meant that he couldn't go at the same speed as us, with the same revolutions of the pedals. So he had to virtually cycle twice as fast to keep up, pedal twice as fast to keep up with us. It was so hard.

I decided to cycle it all - the 555 miles in 48 hours or something, which was really bloody hard. I think three of us did it all. One was a pro. One was Russ Kesley, who was one of the original founders, and myself. Anyway, Ian and myself, we hit it off really well. And there was talk about this upcoming challenge on the ride with Rob, saying he fancies doing one to Rome.  I said to Ian that if we were going to do one, we had to do one together. We decided to visit all Six Nations stadiums and try and raise loads of money. We wanted to make friends forever in our team. We've got a great team and a great backing team.  wanted to have as much fun as possible along the way. So that was the seed or the little flakes of snow, which suddenly got rolling and became a massive snowball!

As a person, I'm learning so much along the way, working in this big team. We've got 16 riders, four pods of four, one van dedicated to each pod.

We're going to be doing all Six Nations stadia, but we've got to manage it so that each part has got a similar level of rider. We've got to grade the riders so that they stay as a group together - because if they cycle as a group and take it in turns at the front, you're making a hole in the wind -and the other three get a little bit of a rest then, they can just rotate. What you don't want to have is somebody who's really, really good with some three others that aren't very good because he'll get frustrated, they'll get annoyed and it won't work. So, we've got to grade them. 

We've engaged with shed loads of ex-internationals who are going to meet us in all the different countries that we're going to visit, which is really exciting and they'll be sort of engaging with us in their clubs and they're going to join us on the rides on the way through their legs or regions, if you like.

On the first day we leave, which will be the 28th, we leave Edinburgh, then the next day get over to the ferry port, over to Belfast, down to Dublin, and then we cross that night over to Wales, arriving on the 1st, St David's Day, which is going to be massive for Wales. We've got eight schools to visit on St David's Day, so they'll all be in their Welsh clothing costumes. We've got a couple of rugby clubs we're going to visit and then we're going to be going down then to a rugby club called Abertillery Blaenau Gwent where there's sadly a poor chap there who has MND and he's probably in a tough place now. He's got a young family, a little boy and a little girl.

That club is ever so excited that we're coming down to support them. We're going to have dinner there and we've got a Q&A session. So we've got Roger Baird, Ex-Lions, Ian, Ex -Ex-SRU president. We've got Paul Volley, who is or has won a European Winners Cup medal.

So, you know, we've got a good set of people who will be able to do a Q&A at that dinner to raise some funds for Mark, his family, and for the foundation. Then we stay in Cardiff for Saturday night at The Holiday Inn, which is putting us up for free, which is amazing, then on to Twickenham, down to the south of England, where we're going support another local MND society and a local rugby club. Do a similar Q and A. Then over to France on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and engage with clubs along the way. Paul Volley's going to get some ex-French internationals to join us in France and in England, which is amazing. Then we go to Monaco, and this is where you gotta pinch yourself, because it's like a bit of a fairy tale!

We go and visit Prince Albert in his palace. We hand the match ball to Prince Albert - which is mad, for Scotland playing Italy in the Cuttitta Cup. Prince Albert will hand the ball to Massimo Cuttitta's brother, Marcello. So that's going to be emotional. Then we'll have another fundraising dinner. From there, we'll go down from Monaco with the Italians and Marcello's team via Pisa, to Rome.

We've got to cross the Alps, so that's going to be tough. We're going to be trying to do about 250 miles a day between four pods, in like a leapfrogging, baton changing-type style.

WHY DO YOU WANT TO DO IT?

MND has no barriers, it's an international disease. As Doddie said, some people say it's incurable, it's not incurable, it just needs funding. And I think raising money and asking people for sponsorship is one thing, but raising awareness leads to funding which becomes perpetual until we can crack it.

Some members of the team have been to the research centre in Edinburgh, they were so buoyed up with what we're doing because we're all sort of mutually reliant on each other. Without the researchers, without the fundraisers, without the sponsors, without the people doing the event, nothing's going to happen.

By doing something and by engaging with the young people of today, if we can inspire those young people to either do something similar to what we're doing, become sports people of the future, or become scientists of the future, then we've achieved something. That's what my ethos is, it's not just about, you know, peddling your bike and asking people for funds, it's about raising awareness, engaging the young people, getting them to be inspired, so they are future good citizens.

TOUGHEST THING ABOUT THE CHALLENGE?

Toeing in the party line? Haha! No, the hardest thing for me now is that we're co-captains, Ian and myself, and he's great. He's obviously like up there compared to me, in terms of his skills and levels of engagement. So I think I need to know my place, let him do work with the big boys and then because I'm relatively fit I've got to maybe be the one that says; "Okay, well, I'll go the extra mile on the bike or something like that. I'll maybe lead by example on the bike". If I can. I'm training really hard and the challenge probably for the majority of the team will not be the riding as such, it's the lack of sleep, the lack of being comfortable because if you're not riding you're gonna be in the back of a van.

You're probably gonna be squashed up next to the person next to you. We've all got to get on, we've all got to smile, we've all got to count to ten and it will happen. People will be tired, people will feel a little bit stressed, they will be hungry and we've just got to recognise that and be kind to each other I think and if we can do that and end up as lifelong friends, again that will be another achievement.

It will be 2000 miles over 8 days, so it's 250 miles a day. Each pod will do between 60 and 70 miles, depending on how tired people are going to get. You can't guarantee we'll get four on the bike every day. Maybe a driver will get tired and a rider will have to drive.The support crew have got a massive challenge. Without them, we'd be nothing. Their role is vital. They're going to have to be driving, alert, checking our kit over, checking our bikes over, mothering us, soft - soaping us. They've actually got a much harder job than us. We're just going to be turning the pedals, really.

ULTIMATE AIM

My ultimate aim would be to inspire young people, engage with communities, complete the ride and raise a shed full of money, get to Rome and have lifelong memories and lifelong friends.

I think by taking part in a charitable event with your friends or you're in a position whereby you can make new friends, you not only make new mates, you create new alliances, you meet people who are probably better than you, so it lifts you up a little bit.

As a person on this ride for example, I only run a small company, there's six of us, whereas at the moment I'm negotiating with a team of 30 people with different roles. So for me, I'm learning to become a better person, in terms of how to manage things. I would never have had that experience before. And it's just so fulfilling being part of something like that.

I'm really enjoying it. Sometimes if you don't lift your head above the parapet, you don't know what view is going to be there.