About Us

Cycling

One More City is an annual cycling campaign that moves from city to city, starting from where the previous year’s ride has finished. In 2017 we rode from London to Paris in 24 hours, then in 2018 we undertook the 600k from Paris to Amsterdam over 3 days. For 2019 we rode 720km from Amsterdam to Strasbourg over 4 days. In 2020, we rode a 750k loop from London and back, taking in the Peak District, Shropshire, the Cotswolds and the Chilterns. 2021 was still under the shadow of COVID, and our route took us from Reading to Penzance. We were back on the road in 2022, finally heading back to Strasbourg to ride to Munich. In 2023 we rode from Munich to Venice and continued this journey from Venice to Rome in 2024.

In 2022 & 2023 Bella Velo, a London based women’s cycling club, organised day rides significant fund for One More City. We also expanded online to Zwift rides with Rocacorba Collective, a Girona based online cycling club established by Ashleigh Moolman Pasio.

Additionally in 2023, we ran a century from Rapha San Francisco.

research

One More City is focused on raising funds for research into secondary breast cancer, a disease which killed nearly 12,000 women in 2016 in the UK alone.  For more information about secondary breast cancer and the ground-breaking research we are funding, (please see the Why We Ride section). One More City works with The Institue of Cancer Research and Imperial College London.

endurance

The ethos of One More City is that the journey is never over; we are always progressing towards the next city, there are always more kilometres to do, more climbs to conquer and more challenges to face. This is akin to the reality of anyone living with cancer, especially secondary cancer, for whom the challenge is never over; there are always more treatments to endure, more scans to face, more side effects to manage.

Christine’s Story

One More City was founded by Christine O’Connell, a keen cyclist, following her diagnosis with secondary breast cancer. Christine was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013 and underwent extensive treatment. In 2017, to mark five years post diagnosis, she and three friends cycled from London to Paris to raise funds for a breast cancer support service.

The ride was such a success that they decided to do it again in 2018, but in February 2018, while cycling through London, Christine suffered a seizure which led to the discovery of a brain tumour and a diagnosis of secondary breast cancer.

As she learned more about her diagnosis, Christine was struck by the relative paucity of research funding for secondary breast cancer compared to primary breast cancer and the team decided to focus their fundraising on innovative research, specifically Ph.D. students conducting research into secondary breast cancer.

Despite ongoing treatment, Christine keeps turning the pedals, and regularly clocks up over 10,000 kilometres annually. Cycling aided her recovery from breast cancer treatment in 2013 and remains her outlet for coping with the challenges of secondary cancer.

“My hope is that one day we will be able to say cancer is a chronic disease that you can live with and live well with. I think this is a realistic hope. Curing cancer is of course the ultimate goal but the more I learn about the complexity of treating cancer in its multiple forms, the more I have tempered my hopes. “I am proud to say that through the One More City campaign we are funding future scientific talent who we hope will play a key role in improving the lives of people with cancer.”

To read more about Christine’s story, see the Rouleur article and her blog. A full gallery of One More City rides can be found here.

One More City & The RCC

The name ‘One More City’ came from a meeting Christine had with Rapha founder and CEO Simon Mottram.  As they discussed the concept of a perpetual ride, Simon emphasised the importance of a compelling name and brand, and the discussion did not finish until an appropriate name had been identified.  One More City is grateful for the advice and support of Simon and Rapha in getting the ride off the ground and we continue to work with Rapha Custom to produce our wonderful OMC kit.

One More City would not exist without the Rapha Cycling Club (RCC). The RCC is a global community for cyclists, and the majority of our participants, and many of our supporters are RCC members.