Team GB Olympian Laura Trott and London Mayor Boris Johnson took to their bikes today to launch the 2013 London cycling festival RideLondon.

RideLondon is London’s new cycling festival which includes traffic-free cycling past major London attractions for families and amateurs, as well as the opportunity to spectate while some of the world’s best athletes race through the capital’s streets.

Cycling in London is one of the best ways to travel, on a hire bike, with a cycle tour, or on your own bike. RideLondon will be an entire weekend devoted to getting out and about on your bike.

Gold medalist Laura said, “It’s great to think we may have inspired people to get on their bikes and RideLondon is a great opportunity for the public to get out and join us on the roads. Cycling has always been a huge part of my family’s life and I hope that having watched the Games lots more people will be encouraged to have a go.”

RideLondon takes place between 3 and 4 August 2013. Visit www.ridelondon.co.uk for more information.

Open to everyone – including non-UK residents – the scheme was expanded earlier this year to include more of East London. There are now 8000 bikes and 560 docking stations.

Cycling is a great way to see the city whilst getting some exercise - plus it can often be quicker than other forms of public transport. I’m guessing cycling will become even more popular in London following Team GB’s stellar London 2012 Olympic performance!

Have you tried the bikes? Tell us about your best journey?

And you’d definitely be getting into the cycling spirit. But what if you’d rather get more from your London trip? Perhaps you’d rather take a traffic-free route around London’s landmarks, but just aren’t sure where to go? The following guide-led cycling tours of London will not only get you freewheeling around the best the city has to offer, you’ll also learn as you turn those pedals. (Wearing a yellow jersey and inked-on sideburns is, of course, optional…)

1. Capital Sport – Gentle Cycling
Choose from a variety of London tours organised by Capital Sport: from a half-day tour of London’s Heart (taking in Buckingham Palace, Tate Modern, the Thames and more) to four-day trips from London to Richmond to Windsor and back! I particularly like the London to Greenwich and The Barrier and back tour: “a day tour with 8 or 15 miles of virtually traffic free flat cycling” – sounds like my kind of ride!

2. Fat Tire Bike Tours
Family-friendly and fun, the Fat Tire Bike Tours offer two unique cycling tours through London: Royal London and River Thames. With baby seats and super-comfy bikes for hire, Fat Tire Bikes are suitable for the whole family. If you’re a really inexperienced cyclist, try the Royal London Tour, which spends much less time on London’s roads, instead sharing with you the best of London’s Royal Parks.

3. London Bicycle Tour Company
The London Bicycle Tour Company has one of the largest selection of bikes for hire in London. They offer daily tours of central London and the West End, as well as weekend tours around East London and the London 2012 Olympic sites. Their new hire centre is just 3 miles from the Olympic Park at Camp in London, and is open daily from 8am to 8pm.

4. Mind The Gap Cycle Tours
With the Mind The Gap Cycle Tours, you really can travel in Bradley Wiggins’ footsteps. (Or should that be pedals?) Riding from Richmond to Hampton Court Palace, you pass Ham House and some great local pubs before visiting the very place where Wiggins started his historic time trial yesterday. Then you can leave the bikes to the guides while you enjoy a look around Hampton Court Palace before returning to London on public transport.

5. Association of Professional Tourist Guides
Finally, you can take a fully-guided cycling tour from the best tour guides in the business: London’s Blue Badge Tourist Guides. These guides are known throughout the world for the accuracy of their information and their incredible enthusiasm for sharing London’s most fascinating stories. They’ll even create a bespoke bike tour for you; find out more here.

Do you have any tips for exploring London by bike? Please share them with us in the comments below.

 

Two teams of charity cyclists arrive in London today having ridden all the way from Europe to celebrate the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

A group of 150 orange-clad Dutch cyclists will pitch up at the Oranjecamping site in Walthamstow at 3pm this afternoon. They’re sportive cyclists on a tour organised by The Royal Dutch Cycling Federation (KNWU) that saw them ride from Utrecht, via Hoek of Holland and Harwich to London. Their arrival heralds a week of Olympic celebrations at Heineken House in Alexandra Palace. The cycling team is led by Olympic snowboarding champion Nicolien Sauerbreij and accompanied by the illustrious Dutch umpa band Kleintje Pils.

Another group of 20 cyclists from the Austrian Tirol will reach London Bridge today after their eight-day, 1,300km charity ride from Innsbruck. The ride was in aid of British charity Disability Snowsport UK (DSUK).

Supporting the Tirol cycle team at the start was the UK’s Heather Mills, hopeful for the Paralympic Games in Sochi 2014 for the British Disabled Ski Team, who joined them as they set off from the Bergisel stadium. During the ride’s final stage from Ramsgate to Tower Bridge, British sport personalities will join including BBC Ski Sunday presenter Graham Bell and ex GB ski racer Konrad Bartelski.

The Tirol team’s arrival coincides in with the official opening of the Olympic hospitality house, Austria House Tirol, at Trinity House.

What ho! Did you see these splendid folk out and about on their bikes last weekend enjoying the annual London Tweed run?

Nonusual shared a set of cool photos of the cyclists with the Visit London Flickr group.

Elegant tweed triumphs over sweaty spandex as participants are encouraged to wear traditional British cycling outfits and embrace a more refined, classic style.

As of this morning, an additional 2,700 docking points have been added in Tower Hamlets, and in north Shoreditch, Hackney.

You can also cycle further west, as 600 new docking points have been provided at Westfield London shopping centre in Shepherds Bush.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said:

“Our wonderful blue bikes have changed the face of London and introduced a new form of public transport that has eased getting around our great city for thousands of Londoners and made the capital even more attractive to visitors. I am delighted to have kept my promise to provide a cycle hire scheme for the people of London and today we have made it even bigger and better than ever before.”

Find out more about Barclays Cycle Hire

Thousands of spectators lined the streets of London yesterday to watch the London-Surrey Cycle Classic, a 2012 test event.

The 140 km (87 mile) route started at The Mall in Central London and passed sights including Richmond Park, Hampton Court Palace and Box Hill in Surrey.

It was a home win, as British cyclist Mark Cavendish rode to victory.

The Olympic road cycling is free to watch and takes place between 28 July and 1 August next year.

The London cycle hire scheme is such a great way to travel round London, even Hollywood stars are getting in on the act.

Actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger caught up with London Mayor Boris Johnson for a quick cycle round Potters Field park this lunchtime. Arnie even brought some California sunshine with him!

For the Bolivian post in our World in London challenge, we’d like to share with you this fantastic video called B is for Bolivia: an A to Z of World Foods of London from Tom Kevill Davies on Vimeo.

Tom is a journalist and photographer who’s currently eating his way from A to Z around London. You can find out more about his project at London’s World of Food: A to Z.

In his own words:

“I love riding my bicycle and I love to eat. It really is that simple. As a journalist, author and photographer I enjoy writing and photography almost as much as eating and cycling, which basically means, I bicycle to wherever I can find good, well prepared, locally produced, fresh and traditional food before eating it and writing about it.”

You can keep up with Tom on his blog, The Hungry Cyclist, and if you fancy joining him, why not look into his Tandem Tours; as he says, ”It’s a pretty unique way to see the city!”

Do you know any more places where you can enjoy Bolivian culture in London? Let us know in the comments below.

The Olympic velodrome was officially opened today, making it the first Olympic Park venue to be completed.

The 6,000 seat velodrome will be the venue for indoor cycling and BMX events at the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Olympic gold medallist Sir Chris Hoy rode on the completed track, along with Beijing medal winners Victoria Pendleton and Jason Kenny.

The velodrome has been praised for its architecture and is known as “The Pringle” due to the roof’s distinctive curved shape.

After the Games, the velodrome will be used by both athletes and the local community. Facilities will include a café, bike hire and a cycle workshop.