85,000 people took over London’s roads in this years Skyride.
A member of staff looks on as cheery Londoners cycle past.
Give people a chance to be a little bit quirky and express themselves and they’ll take it. With beautiful results!
The cheery “lollypop” staff who try to organise the mayhem. Some people appreciate them more than others!
“The sight of hordes of cyclists pedalling their way along traffic free roads past some of London’s most glorious landmarks, and in the midst of a truly carnival atmosphere brought joy to my heart. We are bringing a cycle revolution to the streets of the capital and I am sure that today we persuaded thousands more Londoners that pedal power is the way to go” Boris Johnson
“Hordes of cyclists”
Some looked happier than others..
Kids definitely enjoyed the Skyride the most as they tried to pedal as fast as they could while the parents shout behind them to slow down and to be careful.
The Skyride must of been a surreal sight for most tourists walking past trying to see Buckingham palace.
The best place to see the Skyride from was clearly one of these trailers.
See also:
Looks nice, maybe shouldn’t have missed it this year.
I stopped by the Cycle Hire booth while I was there; most people asking questions wanted to know when casual use was going to start. It’s too bad that they’re just saying “end of the year” now… I think most people will have forgotten their excitement by then.
I had hoped to be able to take a Boris bike to Skyride today, but oh well! I ordered my key yesterday (didn’t want to do it before then as I’ve had unreliable internet until now).
Ooh…my oh my, the lady in the sixth picture does look super grumpy.
Saw a man on a piano go past…his bike was a functioning piano…shame I wasn’t able to get a picture.
I hope everyone enjoyed the day though…It was awesome to see people of all ages on bikes…or in trailers…like little four month olds…how awesome is that!
🙂
I didn’t spot the piano man – would love to have heard how on earth he put that together!
He’d went the wrong way when I passed him reversing towards Horseguards (singing a ditty about being lost too)
Thought you saw him. I should have a pic of him somewhere. He was always around my post…
Oh! And thanks for the nice pic of me. We heard it was 85,000 too at our closing brief but that makes me think last year must have been 150,000
Last year seemed more busy around Buckingham Palace but I think people got congested in other parts of the ride (perhaps to avoid the loud promoters!)
Seemed busier than last year from earlier, but still fun.
You’ve captured some good pix. Altogether a positive statement towards the increasing London Bike Culture.
My brief blog report and a few pix here:
http://rashbre2.blogspot.com/2010/09/skyride-london-2010.html
Oh what nice pictures. It must have been great to participate.
my first skyride and it was great, lots to see that you never get a chance to see normally when riding in the city, too many dangers to watch. plus some people came out with the most amazing outfits and bikes. lady dressed as a croc was a good one and the mad piano bike was something you had to see to believe.
I spotted the croc lady too!
It was good fun, but I think a little bit a victim of it’s own success. I went round 4 times last year but left after 1 go round this year because it was so jam packed that it took 90 minutes to get round.
Still the atmosphere was great and it was nice to see parts of London by bike that you normally don’t get a chance to stop and look at, and hey if it gets more people interested in cycling more frequently it has to be a good thing 🙂
Was quite good fun for some of the ride, but definitely too busy for my liking. Felt I had to concentrate just as hard due to bad cyclists swerving all over the shop and cutting me up. Oh well, good to get people cycling I suppose
Why so many people with reflective vests in the middle of the day? Was it compulsory in order to take part? It looks more like a demonstration of airport or AA workers than a cycling parade…
The bibs were not necessary but you could choose to wear one. I think a lot of people like having them on
It certainly highlights, IMHO, that hi-viz vests, when worn by so many, make us a yellow blur…
Much rather have reflective inserts in garment, like the ones already on most jerseys, pannier bags, rain jackets.
I think the kids – whom i think find it the most fun; to finally cycle on proper roads – enjoyed wearing the Hi-Viz… it could also be a way to start indulging them into safety measures if by luck – for the city – any of them take to being a full time cyclist like us when they grow up
I set a new record for the ride to London (knocking 20 mins off the previous best, and I took the last couple of miles easy…) Anyway, not sure why they had signs up along CS7 in case anyone couldn’t follow the blue carpet to Southwark… Hitting the course at 0830 was nice, just had to stop myself sprinting along the deserted roads! The revised course worked better than last year – Parliament square was bad at the peak, inevitable with a narrowing of the route and the number of crossing points. The general speed was better than last year, and the wider lanes helped, although I still spent more time watching my front wheel than the scenery! While encouraging people to keep left would probably aid safety, it would take away some of the freedom of the event. I took a few photos while cycling round (you can tell which ones were taken while stationary!) http://iainkernaghan.fotopic.net/c1892683.html 98 miles clocked up by the time i got home (nearly took a detour to add a couple more!)
Great idea to ride it while it was completely empty! Like the pictures. Bit of a 28 days later feel to them.
Great shots Andreas, nice to see more photos on your blog. I especially like the punt – that’s even better than the cycling piano in my opinion!
Did anyone go into that Cinemax 3D tent? I fancied it but my other half couldn’t stomach the enormous line to get in. Did I miss anything good?
Here’s my ride report (and more photos) of the big day:
http://bit.ly/bZ0K9K
Can we have a course that’s at least three times as big next year please?! :o)
Yeah, the course clearly needs to be enlarged! Wonder if there will be a Skyride next year? Seen as its the Mayor of Londonds year of walking next
Piano man was there last year as well – it’s a great bike.
Love the punt though, would have been great to see that, but I did a quick circuit before 10:30 and then left for the Angel Canal Festival. Towing three kids for 20 miles was interesting… the babies slept the whole way round, my 4 y/o helped navigate by shouting in my ear every time he saw a sign.
Heard lots of kids going, “Mum, can we get those hire bikes next time?” every time they saw someone on one. Which was nice.
Yeah I did enjoy overhearing the commentary from kids. It was usually the most hilarious. Like you said it mostly involved pointing at things and naming them
well, talking of kids exclamations, the the best i heard at my post was: “WAO! those soldiers are serious. Mum, are they gonna shoot?”
He was talking of the War Memorial with 5 standing soldiers in front of Horse-guard Parade where I did my Route control. And he actually just did an abrupt stop in the middle of the road while exclaiming with emphasis on the “WAO!”
I had a great time and as you said a truly carnival atmosphere 🙂
Great pictures. Thanks for sharing.
My nephews (7 and 9) absolutely loved it and they still can’t believe that they did 20.41 miles that day! One of them came on a tiny whiny single speed children’s bike that didn’t look as though it was going to make it. I won’t forget the 7 year old’s ecstatic face as we pedalled down Whitechapel Road in a feeder ride. They’d only ever really ridden round the park before.
Thanks to LCC and the East London Sikh groups for organising feeder rides – you are all absolutely ace!
I wore my day-glo bib to keep off the wicked wind that day. I would never normally wear anything like that.
this was my first skyride and my kids came with me (4 and 9). we cycled from kennington to westminister and joined from there. it was a great atmosphere enjoyed by all. we saw the piano,a few sound system bikes,some unusual rides and plenty of kids which was lovely. also saw dora,some cool stunts and picked up plenty of freebies and cycling advice. hope to do it again next yr with a hopefully larger route. i’m just glad i got my kids ound and back home in 1 piece without losing one of them not to mention proud of how far we cycled from start to finish. oh and our picture is on the lcc website!
Was a great day, if a little busy. I went along with a mate, and when it got too busy we just went off-course and cycled through London a bit before stopping off to get a Subway!
It was also a perfect excuse to take my new and first road-bike out for a spin, and now I feel much better on it.
The only thing that I found a bit strange was that none of the staff seemed to know where anything was… Asked a few times where to find certain things only to be given a blank look!
Still, all in all a great idea – although once the roads were re-opened to the motorists I did fear a little for some of the obviously inexperienced cyclists wobbling around the huge roundabout in Waterloo!