Yesterday was a day I had waited all year long… The Mayor of London’s Skyride…
Over 65 thousands of cyclists, Londoners and tourists, took their bikes and rode famous, free of traffic London streets.
Slawek and I hopped on the saddles in the morning and headed for Victoria Park Hub (at least that was where we thought the starting point for this part of London was… like last year…) We were really surprised when we realized that there was no hub in Victoria Park… nobody knew where the hob had been moved or whether there were any hubs at all this year… Our friends, Chiara and Mauro, were bewildered as well… We checked the Skyride website using a mobile phone… nothing was mentioned about any starting points anywhere in London… we had no map, nobody knew what to do or where to go… I asked one cyclist whether he knew where the hub was and it turned out it had been moved to Mile End… 7 km from where we were… After few minutes of cycling, we finally found the hub… I was really disappointed… the starting point was poorly signposted and was much smaller than last year’s…
Anyway, we put on green Hi-Viz cycling bibs displaying “Mayor of London’s Skyride” sign and rode to the city’s centre. We started the 15km route from Tower Hill, passed the Tower of London, rode through Lower and Upper Thames Streets, Victoria Embankment, Northumberland Avenue, through Trafalgar Square and The Mall, passed Buckingham Palace and the Victoria Monument.
The resting area was located in St. James’s Park. It was packed with many activities: food, entertainment, music, bike trials displays… Professional BMX and Mountain Bike riders performed tricks in the so-called Street Zone whilst amateur riders could try their luck in stunt riding. You could get a free bike make-over in the Style Zone, learned few tips on health and wellbeing from the members of British Cycling and Nike4Life or took part in a cycle sprint challenge in the Active Zone.
The park was packed with thousands of people lying around on the grass, having their lunches or simply relaxing and enjoying the beautiful, sunny day.
After half an hour, we headed back towards Tower Hill. We posed and smiled for some pictures as we rode past few cameras at designated Photo Points. By the way, the photos were supposed to be ready to download from the Skyride website today at 9am... I think so many people tried to download them that the site crashed... I will try tomorrow again and if I am lucky, I will post some pics from the festival...
Overall, the day was awesome! Over 65,000 cyclists took part in the festival. Bikes and green Hi-Viz bids were everywhere!!! Streets were packed with wall-to-wall riders: moms and dads, grannies and grandpas, kids from smallest to those big ones… couples, loners, groups of friends… clowns on tall bikes, bumblebees buzzing and dancing around amongst the riders, music lovers with huge speakers blasting out tunes, even a piano guy who rode his bike while hitting the keyboards…
The day was simply brilliant and I already cannot wait for the next year’s festival…
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Fair play to you guys!
ReplyDeleteDon't forget to post the pics once you have them!