Laura Reynolds

Ride Your Bike Through A Traffic-Free Central London This Weekend

More than 100,000 people are expected to cycle on London's roads this weekend for Prudential RideLondon.

The annual cycling festival consists of a number of different bike-based events, from the flagship London-Surrey 100 — a 100-mile ride from Stratford out into the Surrey countryside — to the more manageable FreeCycle. Entries for the former have now closed, but there's still time to sign up for the latter (or just turn up on the day). It's a family-friendly ride on traffic-free streets in central London.

Of course, traffic-free does mean road closures — find out more about road closures and transport diversions on the TfL website.

Festival zones are dotted around central London

The eight-mile FreeCycle route [PDF] runs from Bank in the east, to Green Park in the west, passing sights including Buckingham Palace and St Paul's. You can take as long as you like to complete the route — or just do part of it — and there six 'festival zones' spread along the way, with music, entertainment and bike mechanics on hand for any mishaps that occur.

The event is aiming to be free of single-use plastic for the first time, with participants encouraged to bring reusable water bottles, which can be filled up at fountains along the way.

Best leave the long distance rides to the experts

Other events taking place during the Prudential RideLondon weekend include the Classic, which sees some of the world's best cyclists compete in a 169km race televised by BBC Sport, and the Brompton World Championship Final, an eight-lap race around St James's Park on a folding Brompton bike.

Prudential RideLondon takes place 3-4 August 2019. See individual events for details.