The legendary Cannonball Bike Run recently concluded its epic 2024 rally, the longest and most challenging route in its 20-year history.
With 43 riders from across the globe, the group travelled through the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece, clocking up an incredible 3,280km in just eight days.
With this year’s ride marking the event’s 20th anniversary, the Cannonball Bike Run organisers wanted to celebrate the occasion in style, curating its longest and toughest route to date. The Rally began at the iconic Brno Circuit in the Czech Republic on Friday, 28th June, for an optional track session before a pre-party in the city centre. However, in typical Cannonball style, the first day wasn’t without drama when one rider spectacularly highsided his Fireblade on track! Thankfully, some on-the-fly repairs and a bit of creativity saw him rejoin the group just a few days later.
The official 2024 Cannonball Bike Run started on Saturday 29th June, and this year’s group was made up of 43 riders from 12 different countries, including the UK, United States, Norway, Finland and even as far as Australia. As always, the daily activities and destinations were only announced to each rider on the morning of departure to maintain an element of surprise, but over the course of the week, the group travelled some 3,280km and took in some incredible roads and views, including the Transfagarasan and TransAlpina passes, the two highest roads in Romania that were both summited in a single day.
Alongside the toughest route in Cannonball history, this year’s Rally threw up a number of unexpected challenges. Yet despite a baking heatwave enveloping most of Eastern Europe, denied visas, lost passports, wild bears and even one bike ending up fully submerged in a river, all 43 riders were able to complete the route!
Speaking after returning to the UK, Steve Mason, Founder of the Cannonball Bike Run, said, “The 2024 event has been incredible, and I want to thank all of the riders and staff for their spirit, camaraderie, and sheer bloody-minded determination to have the best time of their lives. After twenty years, we thought we had seen it all, but this year just shows that you can never predict what might happen!
Every rider deserves to be highlighted, but I would like to give a special shoutout to our Most Promising Newcomer Award winner. At just 75 years of age, David Robertson showed what the Cannonball Bike Run is all about, and neither an 883km detour due to a nav mix-up or a careless Bulgarian car driver running over his foot 1-mile from the finish line could stop him. Only when he arrived back in the UK did he discover his leg was actually broken – a future Cannonball Legend for sure!
I also want to mention our Spirit of the Event Award winner, 25-year-old Northern Irish rider Scott McIlwaine, who embraced every day with unbelievable spirit and a refusal to quit. I think the 50-year age gap between these two winners is a testament to the wildly varied, one-in-a-million characters that Cannonball Bike Run attracts, and we can’t wait to do it all again next year.”
The 21st Cannonball Bike run will take place on September 7th-14th, 2025, and will take in some of the very best high mountain passes of the Tour de France, Spain and Italy. Entries will open to the public in early September 2024, with full details available at www.CannonballBikeRun.com
