“Wooooooooooh!!!!!” Hear that? That’s me whooping at the stocking that’s at the end of my bed on Christmas morning. Stockings are a tradition that has survived childhood and continued into adulthood and I’ll never give them up – even if I have to fill them myself. This year though, it’s time to start a new tradition because this year, after all that stocking whoopery, it won’t be onto the salmon and scrambled eggs, it’ll be digging into a flapjack and an isotonic drink before embarking on an early morning exploration of London at its quietest. The Christmas Day Bike Ride is my new tradition (no, I didn’t make it up) and the thought of cycling through Piccadilly Circus, down Oxford Street, by Buckingham Palace, over Waterloo Bridge and anywhere else I see fit on the quietest day of the year is almost as appealing as that tat-filled, oversized sock at the foot of my bed.
If you want to make it official – and I haven’t quite decided whether mine will be solo breakaway or festive peloton huddle – then you can join one of the few semi-organised Christmas Day Rides through London. The London Fixed Gear and Single Speed forum usually meet at 9am around Oxford Circus for a relaxed romp through central, which would probably be my preferred gang to join. For a more wholesome family feel there’s the CTC ride, which pedals from Cutty Sark Gardens at 10am and loops into Whitehall after picking up the bunch from Southwark Needle.
Naturally, bidons will be filled with Baileys and the mid-ride snack will be a mince pie. It’s a fine excuse to build up an appetite but the main reason to saddle up is to see a deserted (relatively) London that, coincidentally, like Christmas, comes but once a year. Allez Christmas!
