Did a borrowed aero bike make me faster? Did the event feel more packed than previously? And can we have the same weather every year?

So, if you were among the 26,000 or so people who rode yesterday’s RideLondon-Surrey 100, how was it for you? Now in its third year, the event, beginning at the Olympic stadium in Stratford, east London, and building to a thrilling finish on the Mall, via big stretches of London and some climbs in the Surrey countryside, is famously held on roads closed to other traffic.

This does cause some annual grief among locals unable to travel anywhere by car for a day, though the RideLondon organisers say such anger is abating as people get used to the event. But for a cyclist taking part, it’s a revelation. It’s London (or any big city) as it could be in your dreams: taken over by cyclists – even if they are generally of the fast-moving Lycra-clad type, rather than everyday pootlers.

Cyclist dies near Dorking during RideLondon Read more

Every year the worst part of RideLondon is cycling home. In part it’s the aching legs. But more than that, it is the sudden return of those dirty, feral, space-consuming metal boxes on wheels. Banishing them altogether is not realistic, but nor is asking cyclists to share fast-moving road space with them.

I took part for a third year and, like last year, in a format shamelessly lifted from my colleagues on the Football website, here are five largely personal thoughts on RideLondon 2015.

1. An aero bike might make you quicker

Forgive me as I begin with some minor bike geekery. An unfortunate sequence of events – a new road bike on order suddenly delayed for a fortnight; the old one already sold – left me in a fix last week. I shamelessly rang the press office for Evans Cycles and asked if they could lend me something.

They did, and it was quite a machine – a Fuji Transonic 1.3, £3,400 worth of shiny, curved carbon-fibre tubing, with Dura-Ace components. The Transonic is an aero road bike, an increasingly popular variant, which borrows lots of wind-cheating tricks from time trial bikes with the aim of cutting through the air more efficiently.

Wind tunnel tests do seem to show that such bikes are more efficient than their more traditional counterparts, but I’d always been sceptical, not least as such a bike, however sleek, would still have the flailing, panting, decidedly unsleek me on board.

But, especially given that I collected the bike on the Friday before RideLondon and rode it precisely twice, briefly, before the 100 miles, the Transonic was a revelation. As with many aero bikes, it can feel rattly and firm over bumpy roads – it is, to be fair, a race machine – but it handles beautifully, as well as any bike I’ve ridden. When you’re amid 26,000 other riders, having a bike that goes precisely where you point it is not to be sniffed at.

And now the speed. It’s not the easiest bike I’ve used to accelerate to speed, but once going at a decent lick, the Transonic did feel as if it was slicing through the air, making me that little bit faster.

My ride time appeared to bear this out. In 2013 I managed about five hours 20 minutes for the 100-mile course. The next year can’t be compared, as the Biblical rain – more about that below – meant that 14 miles of twisty roads were dropped from the route.

I set out this year with the ambitious and frankly arbitrary target of finishing in less than five hours. I’d not done a vast amount of training and I was two years older – could I really make a 6% gain?

And yet I did. Well, just about – my final recorded time was 5 hours and 51 seconds, but close enough to keep me happy. I did really push myself, and it’s arguable that aiming for a target made me do so more than two years ago.

Even so, I think the bike played a part, and not just in the inevitable gain that comes with a very posh machine. Once up at speed, maintaining it just felt that bit easier.

Would the Transonic be the ideal bike to ride around town all the time? Possibly not. Would I like to be an eccentric, bike-obsessed millionaire with one in the storeroom to unleash at events like RideLondon? Yes please.

2. The weather gods smile

As mentioned above, last year’s RideLondon was certainly the wettest ride of my life, quite possibly even the wettest I’ve ever been outside of a bathroom, swimming pool or sea, as the tail-end of hurricane Bertha brushed the UK.

Also as mentioned, the organisers took the decision to trim the length to 86 miles, removing some slightly sketchy descents. Race director Hugh Brasher has been organising the London Marathon for many years too and he told me last week that last year’s rainfall took him as close as he’d come ever to cancelling an event.

Not surprisingly, Brasher looked more relaxed this year. While the day heated up – London was basking in 27C or so by mid-afternoon – during my ride, the conditions were more or less perfect. It was slightly sunny, pleasantly tepid, and the wind was slight. Even the 6am start wasn’t too cold.

That said, I did see some riders wearing cycling tights, long-sleeved tops, even waterproof jackets. That must have been a bit sweaty.

3. RideLondon gets ever more popular – but how big can it become?

While the 100-miler is not the biggest part of the RideLondon weekend – the family oriented FreeCycle on Saturday involved 70,000 people – it is the most oversubscribed. Precisely 86,001 people applied for 25,000 or so places. Those 25,000 places are up from 20,000 in 2014 and 16,000 in the first year. Yet all these extra people are being fitted on to the same roads.

Brasher and his team take the issue of overcrowding very seriously. They will spend the next few months crunching data from riders’ timing chips, seeing how many cyclists per hour passed various points of various widths, and if more can be safely accommodated.

I trust them to be sensible – RideLondon is very, very well run – but even this year it was notable that the course felt more congested, especially on narrow sections with big differences in people’s speeds, such as Leith Hill.

In general, riders were very courteous, signalling properly and not trying much that was silly. But there were incidents. A friend of mine was descending Leith Hill, all set for a very quick sub-five hour time, when a rider behind him made a dash for a gap that wasn’t there, sending my friend to the ground. His wrist is badly sprained, meaning he spent two hours being treated by the roadside rather than sprinting down the Mall.

Such incidents happen – I saw a couple of nasty comings-together in 2013 – but I’m glad Brasher is aware of the potential risks of cramming in too many riders.

4. Road cycling is getting very, very popular

I was slightly self-conscious turning up on my very bling-looking borrowed bike, but I needn’t have worried. I’d guess that on my bit of the startline it was not the most expensive bike, and not miles away from the average value, either.

RideLondon is full of shiny, expensive bikes, especially before 7am, when I set off – as the day progresses, the tandems, hybrids and mountain bikes come out in greater force. I even saw two people riding ultra-flash time trial bikes, in complete contravention of the RideLondon rules.

It’s interesting to hear Brasher stress that, much as he wants to encourage such sports-style riding with RideLondon, an equal if not more important focus is everyday cycling, as exemplified by FreeCycle, a gentle tootle around 10 miles of traffic-free central London roads.

Brasher talks eloquently about the challenges faced in an increasingly polluted, congested, unfit city, and of his hope not just to inspire a generation of elite riders, but also many thousands more who commute to work by bike.

Brasher said he’d started riding from his west London home to work by bike himself two months before and had already lost half a stone. Let’s hope many more follow suit.

5. It doesn’t have to be just London

While RideLondon is seen as one of the few successful legacies of the London 2012 Olympics – it was announced during the Games, and the 100-mile route closely follows the 2012 road cycling course – there are worries that, much like the Olympics, it’s an event that claims to benefit all the country while really only affecting the capital.

Nevertheless, it is national in participation. I spotted jerseys from cycling clubs from all around Britain, not to mention some from abroad. But the worry is that the more general inspiration for everyday cycling remains more London-based.

Brasher and his team are keen to spread the gospel, and regularly host visitors from UK and overseas cities keen to have similar events of their own.

Some do: for example, Edinburgh and Manchester. Yet they receive far less attention. Is this a product of London-centric media, or is RideLondon simply that much bigger than anything else? And does RideLondon have a national impact?