Fancy Bike Party

The best part of the London Marathon (besides the women's world record) was the participant who ran dressed as Big Ben. He did well for over 42 kilometres until he got stuck under the final gate. There were also people running as a fridge, a telephone box, a flamingo, a haddock and Santa Claus. It is the biggest 'Fancy Dress Party' in England.

The English love dressing up, whether it's Ladies' Day at Ascot, a hen party, a Christmas party or the world darts championship at Ally Pally. 'Other countries,' writes Kate Fox in Watching the English, 'have a masked ball or regional festivals where people wear traditional costumes, but they don't have a Fancy Dress Party every week, for no apparent reason or with a lame excuse, like the English do.'

How good the English are at dressing up is demonstrated at the annual Tweed Run, which is usually held on the last Saturday of April or early May. It is a cheerful ride of about twenty kilometres in which hundreds of cyclists ride through London dressed in traditional fashion. They do this on all kinds of bicycles, from Penny Fathings to 'the original' fixed gear roadsters from around the turn of the century (from the nineteenth to the twentiet, that is).

Most participants have a bicycle with a basket. This is handy for provisions, because there is both a tea and a lunch break, just like at a cricket match. Some have an old radio in their basket, playing jazz music from the twenties or thirties. In another basket a lap dog is sleeping. The unwritten dress code is: as much tweed as possible. The peloton looks like it has ridden out of a novel by P.G. Wodehouse.

The beauty of the Tweed Run is that it makes cycling fun and social, rather than a time trial as it is for many Londoners - especially men in lycra on racing bikes, the so-called MAMILS (Middle-Aged Man in Lycra). It’s not the destination that matters, but the journey itself. It’s retro cycling, slow cycling. ‘Just because something is from the past,’ said initiator Ted Young-Ing a few years ago, ‘doesn’t mean you should reject it.’

On Saturday I met the tweed runners at the Imperial War Museum, where they were enjoying tea, a slice of lemon drizzle and in some cases a pipe on the grass. I met a Dutch friend, Edward, wearing a Harris Tweed hat, a scarf, a black and white striped sweater and leather gloves. He was riding an old Rudge that he bought online during the lockdown. Wearing this outfit, he fit right in at this Fancy Dress Party on wheels.