Breakfast, the most important freebie of the day

There's no such thing as a free lunch, but Bike Week offers plenty of free breakfasts, usually provided by volunteers from borough groups.

Yesterday, for instance, Camden Cyclists thoughtfully provided gratis fruit juice, muffins, croissants and maps right on my route to work, just by the British Library (pics).


I arrived just as real cyclist and newsreader Jon Snow was leaving, so I suddenly felt the urge to do a brief weather forecast.

I'm off to another free breakfast this morning, in Soho Square, this time courtesy of the cycle parking outfit Bike Shed. Their site lists their sponsors, and I think sponsorship is a good way of expanding these Bike Week breakfasts.

For example, Ealing could involve some of the fantastic Indian restaurants there to fire you up with a morning curry. Southwark could send you on your way with exotic fruit from the fantastic Oli Food Centre grocery: fig, guava, honey mango, custard apple, kaki, jujube.

Best of all, Lambeth could get the excellent Portuguese cafe Madeira on board, to dispatch cyclists to work with a breakfast fillet of swordfish and refreshing pint of Super Bock.

I like the idea of that one. The prospect of creating web pages detailing our holdings on the history of Liechtenstein would be that bit more bearable.