''The Bike Ride'', ''Bike Round'' or ''Boy on the Bike'' is a 1973 advert for the bread maker

Hovis Hovis Ltd is a British company that produces flour, yeast and bread. Founded in Stoke-on-Trent, it began mass-production in Macclesfield in 1886. Hovis became part of Rank Hovis McDougall (RHM) in 1962 after a succession of mergers. RHM, with ...

Ridley Scott Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is an English film director and producer. He directs films in the Science fiction film, science fiction, Crime film, crime, and historical drama, historical epic genres, with an atmospheric and highly co ...

directed the advert.

Production

''Boy on the Bike'' was one of five adverts that

directed for Hovis in the early 1970s. The advert shows a boy (played by Carl Barlow) pushing a bicycle laden with bread up a picturesque English

cobbled Cobblestone is a natural building material based on cobble-sized stones, and is used for pavement roads, streets, and buildings. Setts, also called ''Belgian blocks'', are often referred to as "cobbles", although a sett is distinct from a ...

street. A voiceover nostalgically describes the trip, while a recording of the largo from Dvořák's

Symphony No. 9 Symphony No. 9 most commonly refers to: * Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven) in D minor (Op. 125, ''Choral'') by Ludwig van Beethoven, 1822–24 * Symphony No. 9 (Dvořák) in E minor (Op. 95, B. 178, ''From the New World'') by Antonín Dvořák, 1893 ...

"From the New World" is played by the

Ashington Ashington is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, with a population of 27,864 at the 2011 Census. It was once a centre of the coal mining industry. The town is north of Newcastle upon Tyne, west of the A189 and bordered to the ...

Colliery Band. Despite the common belief that it was set in the

North of England Northern England, or the North of England, refers to the northern part of England and mainly corresponds to the historic counties of Cheshire, Cumberland, Durham, Lancashire, Northumberland, Westmorland and Yorkshire. Officially, it is a gr ...

, the advert was filmed on

Gold Hill, Shaftesbury Gold Hill is a steep cobbled street in the town of Shaftesbury in the English county of Dorset. The view looking down from the top of the street has been described as "one of the most romantic sights in England." At the top of the street is ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

; the voiceover is narrated in a

West Country accent West Country English is a group of English language varieties and accents used by much of the native population of the West Country, an area found in the southwest of England. The West Country is often defined as encompassing the officia ...

. It has been speculated that the misidentification of location could be because of the strong association of brass bands with "northernness".

Reception

The advert has frequently been named one of Britain's most loved adverts. In 2006 it was voted the nation's favourite advertisement of all time. It was chosen as the best advert of the 1970s in a 2018

YouGov YouGov plc is a international Internet-based market research and data analytics firm headquartered in the UK with operations in Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. History 2000–2010 Stephan Shakespeare and Nadhim ...

poll. In 2019 it was named the most iconic and heartwarming advert of the past 60 years to that point. The advert's popularity has been attributed to its nostalgia for "wholesome images of village life" as well as Scott's visual direction. Gold Hill, where the advert was filmed, has since become a popular location for films and merchandise. A memorial to Hovis now stands at the top of the hill. Hovis and the BFI restored the advert for use in 2019 in what was seen as an attempt to unite a divided nation. It was criticised by

Sussex University The University of Sussex is a public research university located in Falmer, East Sussex, England. It lies mostly within the city boundaries of Brighton and Hove. Its large campus site is surrounded by the South Downs National Park, and provide ...

Marketing Professor Michael Beverland for reminding those who voted to remain in the

Brexit referendum The 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, was a referendum that took place on 23 June 2016 in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar under the provisions o ...

of how little they had in common with those who voted to leave.

References

Citations

Bibliography

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External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bike Ride, The 1973 in British television 1973 works 1970s television commercials Films directed by Ridley Scott British television commercials