THE LAST RIDE HOME: HOW 40,000 BIKERS CLOSED A MOTORWAY TO SAY GOODBYE TO A HAIRY BIKER

A Carriageway Stopped for a Procession of Grief and Joy

On Saturday, June 20, 2026, police officers in Cheshire did something that brings most of England's road network to a standstill for only the most extraordinary of reasons: they temporarily stopped traffic on the M6, closing a carriageway of one of the country's busiest motorways, to allow thousands of motorcyclists to set off on the final leg of a 300-mile journey. It was the third and last time this would happen. The occasion was Dave Day — a tribute ride in memory of Dave Myers, the much-loved television presenter and one half of the Hairy Bikers, who died of cancer in February 2024.

By the time the convoy reached its destination outside Barrow-in-Furness Town Hall on Duke Street at around 3.45pm, organisers estimated that more than 40,000 motorcyclists had taken part — a number that, for a town of Barrow's size, represents an almost unimaginable, temporary multiplication of its population, arriving on two wheels from every corner of the country to honour a man whose television career had made him a household name and whose roots in Cumbria had never left him.

Who Was Dave Myers, and Why Did a Town Build a Tribute This Size?

Dave Myers was born and raised in Barrow-in-Furness, in Cumbria's Furness peninsula, before going on to become — alongside his friend and broadcasting partner Si King — one half of the Hairy Bikers, the cooking and travel duo whose motorcycle-riding, plain-talking, deeply warm television presence made them two of the most beloved figures in British food broadcasting for over two decades. The Hairy Bikers built their reputation on a format that fused two seemingly unrelated passions — long-distance motorcycle touring and home cooking — into something that resonated far beyond either niche audience, turning Myers and King into genuine national treasures whose programmes spanned everything from regional British food tours to international cooking expeditions.

Myers revealed his cancer diagnosis in 2022, continuing to work and appear publicly through much of his treatment, and died in February 2024, two years after that diagnosis was first announced. His death prompted an outpouring of public grief that extended well beyond the usual scale of mourning for a television personality — a reflection of just how personally connected audiences felt to a man whose on-screen warmth had never seemed performative.

It was that depth of public affection, combined with Myers' own lifelong identity as a biker and his genuine, unforced connection to Barrow, that inspired the creation of Dave Day — an annual charity motorcycle ride conceived specifically to honour him in a form that matched who he actually was: not a quiet memorial service, but a roaring, joyful, community-wide procession of motorbikes travelling the length of the country to arrive in his hometown.

The Route: 300 Miles From London to Cumbria

Dave Day's route is, by design, a genuine cross-country pilgrimage rather than a short symbolic procession. The 2026 edition — formally titled "Dave Day 3: The Last Ride Home" — began at the legendary Ace Café in London, the historic motorcyclists' meeting point that has anchored British biker culture since the 1950s, with riders setting off at 7am.

From London, the route carried riders north through Oxford, on to Solihull and the National Motorcycle Museum near the M42 — where bikers gathered for what organisers described as the third leg of the journey — before continuing through Knutsford and Lancaster, picking up additional riders joining from Scotland, the North of England, and the East along the way. The full convoy then converged for the final approach into Cumbria via the A590, arriving at Barrow Town Hall at approximately 3.45pm — a single day's journey spanning roughly 300 miles and the better part of nine hours, much of it conducted as one continuous, marshalled procession of motorcycles moving as a unified body through some of England's busiest road infrastructure.

The M6 Toll road — the privately operated alternative to the standard M6 through the Midlands — played a particularly significant supporting role in making this scale of procession logistically possible. M6toll's Communications Manager Maxine Bate confirmed that the company provided free passage for the convoy through its Great Wyrley mainline plaza, with dedicated traffic management in place and lane 1 coned off specifically to allow the bikers to pass safely via the toll road's wide load lane. Dave Day's lead organiser, Jason "Woody" Woodcock, called the gesture "incredibly generous," adding that it "will make a real difference to the safety and experience of everyone taking part." This was not a one-off favour — M6toll has supported the ride in previous years as well, waiving its standard charges specifically to ease the convoy's passage through the Midlands.

It was on the standard M6 in Cheshire, rather than the toll road, where the most dramatic single moment of disruption occurred: police officers brought a full carriageway of traffic to a temporary stop specifically to allow the convoy of riders to set off safely on the final legs of their journey toward Cumbria — the moment captured in the ITV News Granada headline that brought the story to wider national attention.

"Major Delays" and a Country Watching From the Bridges

The scale of disruption along the route was substantial, and authorities had explicitly warned the public in advance to expect major delays across the full 300-mile corridor. But the disruption itself became part of the spectacle rather than simply an inconvenience to be endured. The Yorkshire Post's coverage describes footage captured by a member of the public, Andy Jones-Owen, from a bridge over the M40 immediately south of Warwick Services — one of numerous vantage points along the route where, according to multiple reports, "scores of people" gathered on motorway bridges up and down England specifically to watch the procession pass beneath them.

This pattern of spectators lining bridges and roadside vantage points has become one of the defining visual signatures of Dave Day across its three editions — ordinary members of the public, with no direct connection to the ride itself, choosing to stand on motorway overpasses simply to witness and cheer on a procession of motorcyclists honouring a television presenter most of them likely only ever knew through their television screens. It is, in its own way, a remarkable testament to how deeply Myers' public persona resonated with audiences far beyond his immediate fanbase.

Riders themselves took a break partway through the journey at Knutsford Services, pausing in the June sunshine before completing the final stretch into Cumbria — a brief moment of rest within what was, for many participants, a physically demanding full-day ride conducted in close convoy formation across hundreds of miles.

Barrow Prepares: Road Closures and a Town Transformed

For Barrow-in-Furness itself, hosting an event of this scale required a substantial logistical operation managed by Barrow BID — the town's Business Improvement District organisation — working alongside the local council to manage road closures and crowd safety around the procession's arrival.

Road closures and traffic disruption were planned around Barrow Town Hall and the surrounding town centre streets, the final approach route into the town, Abbey Road and nearby connecting roads, Park Road and surrounding streets, and areas close to the main spectator gathering points. Additional congestion was anticipated on routes leading toward Hindpool and Dalton Road as traffic built up around the town centre during the busiest periods of the afternoon. Local guidance ahead of the event specifically advised drivers to avoid unnecessary journeys through Barrow town centre during the event's peak hours, with the final arrival period from mid-afternoon onward flagged as the point of maximum disruption.

For spectators planning to watch the procession arrive, recommended vantage points included the A590 approach into Barrow, Abbey Road as one of the main routes into town, Park Road and the nearby town centre approach roads, and the Town Hall area itself as the main gathering and finish point — with explicit safety guidance urging anyone watching to remain on the pavement, away from junctions, road bends, and crossings, given the sheer scale of the procession moving through the town's streets.

"Back to Basics": Why This Is the Last Dave Day

Perhaps the most poignant element of this year's event is the fact that it was always going to be the final one — a decision that organisers made not because public enthusiasm had waned, but because the financial and logistical burden of running an event at this scale had become genuinely unsustainable for what remains, at its core, a charity initiative run by a small team of dedicated organisers rather than a large commercial event company.

Earlier in 2026, lead organiser Jason Woodcock confirmed that this year's fundraiser would be the last of its kind. His close friend explained that the event would go "back to basics" specifically because organisers had been asked to take on what were described as "impossible" costs of up to £100,000 — a figure that reflects the genuine scale of what it takes to safely coordinate, marshal, and manage a procession of tens of thousands of motorcyclists across 300 miles of public road, including police liaison, route planning, toll road negotiations, marshalling, insurance, and the basic infrastructure of staging an event that draws crowds at every stage of its route.

This financial reality sits in deliberate tension with the event's extraordinary success as a fundraising and community phenomenon. Across its two previous editions, Dave Day attracted an estimated combined total of over 75,000 bikes and raised more than £250,000 for charity — figures that place it among the more remarkable grassroots motorcycling tribute events in recent British memory. This year's ride, even before the procession had completed its journey, had already raised more than £31,000 for Childline and local good causes in Barrow-in-Furness, with organisers anticipating that figure would continue climbing as riders and spectators contributed throughout the day and in its aftermath.

The event's stated mission has remained consistent across all three editions: organisers describe the aim of Dave Day as being "to spread hope and happiness to all regardless of who you are or where you're from, honouring and remembering Dave and all other lost loved ones" — a framing that deliberately extends the tribute beyond Myers alone, transforming the ride into a broader vehicle for collective grief and remembrance for anyone who has lost someone to cancer, channelled through the specific, joyful medium of a shared journey on two wheels.

A Town That Opened Its Doors

One detail that has consistently emerged from participant reflections on Dave Day, across all three editions, concerns not the bikes or the route but the people of Barrow itself. As one quote captured on the event's official website puts it: "It wasn't just the bikes, it was the Barrow people who opened their homes and welcomed us all with open arms." This sentiment reflects something that distinguishes Dave Day from a purely spectator-facing event — Barrow has, across three consecutive years, absorbed a temporary population surge many multiples of its own size, with local residents, businesses, and the broader community embracing an influx of riders and supporters as an extension of their own collective mourning and celebration of a hometown figure who never lost his connection to the place he grew up.

For Barrow-in-Furness — a town more commonly associated, in national media coverage, with its shipbuilding industry and the BAE Systems submarine yard that dominates its economy — Dave Day has, for three years running, offered something different: a moment of national attention built not around industry or infrastructure, but around community, grief processed through celebration, and the enduring legacy of a man whose fame never separated him from where he came from.

The End of an Era, and What Comes Next

As the final bikes rolled into Duke Street and the crowds gathered around Barrow Town Hall on Saturday afternoon, organisers and participants alike understood they were witnessing the conclusion of something that, in just three years, had become a genuine fixture of the British motorcycling and charity calendar — and one that will not return in its current form.

Whether some smaller-scale successor event eventually emerges to continue honouring Dave Myers' memory in Barrow remains an open question that organisers have not yet addressed publicly. What is clear is that Dave Day's three-year run — from its origins as a spontaneous, grief-driven tribute ride to its final 2026 edition drawing an estimated 40,000 motorcyclists across a 300-mile procession significant enough to close a motorway carriageway in Cheshire — represents one of the more remarkable grassroots memorial phenomena in recent British public life: a television presenter's death transformed, through the collective will of a biking community and a hometown that never stopped claiming him as their own, into an annual celebration of life, charity, and the simple, shared joy of the open road.

Sources

1. ITV News Granada — "Major motorway closed as thousands take part in tribute to Hairy Biker" (June 20, 2026) — itv.com/news/granada
2. Dave Day Official Website — daveday.org
3. Westmorland Watch — "Dave Day 2026: All Details, Maps, Times & Road Closures" (June 2026) — westmorland-watch.co.uk
4. M6toll — "M6toll Supports 'Dave Day: The Last Ride Home' – A Final Chapter for a National Tribute" (June 2026) — m6toll.co.uk
5. The Yorkshire Post — "WATCH: Incredible footage as 40,000 bikers descend on Cumbria for Dave Day 2026 in memory of Hairy Biker Dave Myers" (June 2026) — yorkshirepost.co.uk