New cyclists come out for London's Cycle Friday

The first Cycle Friday has made its mark on London, and the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) is pleased with how today’s rides have gone. The Cycle Fridays in the city have been launched to encourage novice cyclists to commute to work in the hoe that they tempt new cyclists into the saddle.

Run by the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) in partnership with Transport for London, the rides will run for the next eight weeks until October 2. By then it’s hoped the novice cyclists will have improved in confidence enough to follow routes alone.

There will be eight rides per week and today saw six routes running from the suburbs into Central London - Brixton to Russell Square, Finsbury Park to St Pauls, Mile End to St Pauls, Ravenscourt to Trafalgar Square, Swiss Cottage to Holborn and Greenwich to St Pauls. Our London correspondent, TR was a marshall on the ride from Finsbury Park you can find out how he got on on his blog.

Charlie Lloyd, a back up marshal from the LCC, said: “The first cycle Friday has gone really well. We were targeting around 25 new riders per ride and we were pleased with the support. There were two rides of 24 people from Brixton, and the Greenwich ride saw a similar turnout. I was on the Finsbury Park one and it was a nice ride in and we hope to see everyone again next week and some more new riders.

The LCC provide qualified and experienced marshals to guide each ride, which make full use of cycle lanes, start at 8am, and hope to show cyclists the safest routes into the city centre.

Transport for London will be publicising the led rides through the cycling pages of the TfL website.

The Cycle Fridays come on the back of a series of successful BikeTubes events run by the LCC in June.