Cycling club donate bike to Herts 89-year-old after hers is stolen

A cycling club in Hertfordshire has lent a bike to an 89-year-old woman so she can ride to the supermarket – after the bike she had used for decades to get there was stolen.

Berkhamsted Cycling Club has lent Mary Hampton a Dawes Kingpin folding bike “for as long as I need it,” she told BBC News.

The bike replaces the Raleigh Shopper which she used to ride to three miles to her local Waitrose once or twice a week but which was stolen from outside the supermarket earlier this month.

The former schoolteacher admitted she had been “very silly” not to have locked her bike while she went shopping but added that, ever since first riding a bike at the age of five, she “never had.”

She continued: "It was an old-looking bike, I didn't think anybody would be going to steal it."

Wellwishers also donated money so she could buy a basket and a lock for the bike, which was presented to her by Simon Voysey, co-founder and secretary of Berkhamsted Cycling Club.

"I've bought a huge padlock. I've never seen such a big padlock," she added.

The story also caught the attention of BBC broadcaster and regular cyclist Jeremy Vine, who retweeted this video report.

Oh what an adorable lady. pic.twitter.com/1FdwhUGHOp (via @BBC3CR)

— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) April 16, 2017