This was a rather shorter ride around London than the Audax a fortnight ago. :-) My total for the day was a modest 41 miles.

London Freewheel is an annual day in which a bunch of central London streets are closed to motorised traffic so that around 45,000 cyclists can enjoy closed roads. Intended as a fun day out for all, it does have two particular aims: allowing kids to enjoy cycling longer distances in very safe conditions, and giving adults a taster of commuting by bicycle.

The first aim is met by having a closed loop running between the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace. People can do as few or as many laps as they like.

The second aim is addressed by having meeting points in each of the London boroughs with marshalled rides on open roads into the central area. I'd volunteered as a marshall for the ride in from Gidea Park.

It was a Sunday morning, and I was out of bed a whole minute before sunrise! Not that there was too much sun to be seen - things were rather cold and foggy.

I was beginning to wish I'd worn winter gloves instead of summer ones!

When I got to Gidea Park, two of the other marshalls were there. The marshall who knew the route wasn't, however, as he'd fallen off his bike the previous day. We thus waited for a stand-in to arrive to show us the route (we could have found our own way there, of course, but the idea was to use official cycle routes).

By 8.15am, the total present was three marshalls and one participant. Fortunately, more arrived as time went on.

The first stage of the ride was to Ilford Town Hall, where we would form a larger group. We had about 70 riders and 7 or 8 marshalls by that point. The second stage was from Ilford to Victoria Park in Hackney.

The organisers wanted to make the ride as safe and painless as possible for the participants, so the marshalls attended a briefing meeting at City Hall ahead of time. There we were told that officially we had no powers to stop traffic, and here is how you do it ...

We thus created rolling roadblocks through traffic lights and at major junctions. With a small-ish group, this was easy to achieve and didn't hold up any drivers for more than a few minutes.

En-route to Victoria Park, a carrier bag blew across the road and into my rear derailleur. This jammed in tight, and it took three of us about 20 minutes to remove all the torn bits of plastic - many thanks to my fellow marshalls for their kind assistance!

The final stage of the ride in was from Victoria Park to Tower Hill. This included quite a few cycle paths.

I asked the brides if there was any particular reason behind the wedding dress thing, or had it just seemed like a good idea at the time? "We want to get married today." I backed away and wished them good luck in their search for grooms.

Um, I guess if we're showing the eccentrics, I ought really to include this chap:

I asked the brides if there was any particular reason behind the wedding dress thing, or had it just seemed like a good idea at the time? "We want to get married today." I backed away and wished them good luck in their search for grooms.

I'd hoped to meet up with some members of the London Cycling Meetup Group. The plan was to meet at noon, which seemed safe enough, but I'd failed to allow for the slow pace of the marshalled ride, and the carrier-bag incident had also cost us more time, so I was running late. One member, Lynette, had the initiative to remember I was a marshall, go to the marshall's stand and ask them for my phone number. We thus met there.

We waited for a while, but no-one else arrived so we decided to do a lap then check back.

Mind you, Sky Sports managed wonky shots even with the aid of a viewfinder:

And no, I didn't buy a Tour de France shirt: it was a free gift for being one of the first 200 marshalls to register.

Lynette decided two laps were enough, so we spectated and chatted for a while, then I set off for one more lap. Then back to Liverpool Street and the train home. A fun day.