"It is 8am on a warm morning. Waterloo station in London is the city's busiest bicycle hire dock, and this is its busiest time of day. There are no bikes, of course. As quickly as vans unload cycles – 400 of them by 10am – the cycles disappear. Tutting rises from the queue. Then a man glides in, docks and strides off, and the first commuter in line has wheels. Today, wherever bike 15512 goes, we're going, too. We want to know how the cycle hire scheme is used, who rides the bikes, and why. What kind of London will one cycle see?
The man at the front of the queue is Mo Pour, 46, an IT contractor at Standard Chartered bank. Like many at Waterloo, he commutes to the City; the network's most popular journey is Waterloo to Stonecutter Street, near Ludgate Circus. Mo trills his bell in phrases of five behind walkers on their way to the South Bank. Heading towards Southwark, his long shadow tucks in beside him. And then Mo is crossing the Thames, knees sticking outwards, houndstooth jacket flapping.
"The Shard. St Paul's. Tower Bridge." He waves left and right, a jocular tour guide. London opens up on either side of him. But Mo's mind is on the other end of the day, when he will untether his own bike at Brookwood station in Surrey and swoop downhill past a river and lake towards his supper (fish on Wednesdays). Home in time to read his daughter a bedtime story."
