A nine-person team representing Driver Hire, the leading recruitment franchise, cycled its way to success in the inaugural ‘Great British Franchise Cycle’, a month-long competition open to businesses involved in the franchise industry. Their challenge was to see how many miles they could ride as a team during the month of August.

Driver Hire’s team led the way, riding a collective 2,527 miles. Along the way two of the team completed a single day ride from Leeds to Scarborough and another rode 100 miles on the final day of the event to ensure Driver Hire were first past the post by just 19 miles.

The team was competing against giants of the finance industry Barclays Bank, HSBC and Hitachi Finance; other franchise businesses involved were Revive! and NIC Services. Also in the mix were accountants, Morris & Co and the bfa (British Franchise Association).

Driver Hire were announced winners at a special franchise industry day held at British Cycling’s Manchester Velodrome. All teams present had the opportunity to ride the famous track following in the virtual slipstream of Olympic champions Sir Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton, Laura Trott and Jason Kenny. They also met with three current Olympic Development Squad members, Blaine Davis, Lauren Bate and Ryan Owens.

Commenting on their success, Driver Hire’s team captain, Dave Robbins, said: “There’s a strong cycling ethos at Driver Hire with several members of our head office team regularly commuting to work by bike. We also have a number of franchisees who are keen cyclists, one of whom was in our winning team. It’s been great fun, hard work at times, but all worth it now we’ve won.”

They received their winners’ certificate from World Franchise Council Member Michael Eyres, who added: “We had three aims for the competition: to make us all more active and physically fit, raise money for the Franchise Trust and to raise the profile of the franchise industry nationally. ‘The Great British Franchise Cycle’ has met all three, raising over £2300 for the Franchise Trust, getting several mentions on the Chris Evans’ Breakfast Show and, judging by the 12,000 miles clocked up by competitors, more active.”