Wheel Stop Trident: an anti-Trident, anti-cuts, pro-public services, pro-renewables bike ride action

Blog by Owen Everett

Our first significant action was a 75 mile bike ride from central London to Atomic Weapons Establishment Burghfield from 27-28 March 2015, to protest against the possible renewal of our useless and immoral Trident nuclear weapons system at a time when the more genuine, sustainable security of strong public services and renewable energy are facing massive cuts and obstacles respectively. Nine or us were cyclists (a tenth cyclist was prevented from joining us by illness), and the others helped with organising the route, doing social media work, and in one case carrying extra bedding to Reading for the second night. 

We started at the London offices of Lockheed Martin, the world's biggest arms company, which stands to profit a lot if Trident renewal goes ahead, and stopped off at: Ealing Save Our NHS, Grow Heathrow, Slough Quakers on the first day; and Reading Quakers, before reaching Burghfield, on the second day. Spirits were high throughout, despite three punctures on the first day through the same tyre (a new one was purchased on the second day!).

We made an excellent one and a half minute animated film to promote our action, and have made a short video of our first day, as well as a photo montage of our second day. You can watch/look at all of these on our blog homepage, at https://wheelstoptrident.wordpress.com/, which also shows our latest Tweets and Facebook posts.  A final, slicker film of the whole action is hopefully coming soon. We've had quite a significant impact on social media, with retweeters including Green Party politicians and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. We also got media coverage in The Morning Star (https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-ada6-Cyclists-set-off-on-60-mile-protest-ride-against-nukes#.VSZLVfmjOSp), New Internationalist (http://newint.org/blog/2015/03/30/trident-campaign/), and Ekklesia (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/21547).

Follow us on social media! We'll continue to share relevant news and comment pieces.

On Thursday 30 April from 2.30 to 7pm we will be cycling between London offices of Trident profiteer arms companies. The ride will finish at Parliament Square. Details at https://www.facebook.com/events/1443279325969458/. We want people to join us: there are multiple points at which you can do so, and you don't need to cycle for some of them.