.david martin joins in a late night cycle tour of london - the friday night ride

Night has fallen. I'm making my way across town through the hustle and bustle of a London rush hour on a Friday evening. I find my way through the buses and Taxies of Bloomsbury to The Crown on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue. Crowds of commuters are winding down at the end of the week in the beer garden and amongst them is a steadily growing crowd of cyclists for tonight is not just any Friday but the first Friday of the month which means I am just in time for the Friday Night Ride. Andrij spots me, or rather the ACF cycle cap, and waves a greeting. I lean my bike up with the many others - the panniers and sparkly frame looking incongruous against the background of mountain bikes with a craftily constructed patina of London cruft, single speed hacks, fixies and old style racers.

The Friday Night Ride started as a social gathering for a few friends to combine the three great things in life - good company, cycle tours, and great beer. Beer and company are easy, fitting leisure cycling into a modern lifestyle can be tough. "I like to cycle," says Henrik, "but I need a reason to get out and cycle, as I find it very hard to get up and join a club ride at 8am on a Sunday. And it is a great way to see London and meet other likeminded people." Like many good ideas, it's time had come and both Henrik and Paul got it at the same time.

The first Friday Night ride was in February this year, and it has run twice a month since then. Numbers began as a small handful but now stretch to a couple of dozen.

There is scarcely a jot of lycra to be seen as the numbers swell, just the occasional reflective jacket or belt. And jeans. Many pairs of jeans. Leather boots, trainers, hoodies - this is casual cycling taken to an art form that, in some cases, stretches the bounds of legality when it comes to lighting and brakes. Most ages and sexes are represented - four of the fairer sex, with the majority of the others young men. I start to feel a bit old for this game.