Chain gangs, spot London's cycling tribes

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Where to spot them Whizzing over Waterloo Bridge in rush hour

Encased in a slippery, amphibious second skin, riding a titanium bike that weighs less than a paperclip and commanded the remortgaging of his house, the Lycra Lad is The Don of the roads. In his own mind, at least. During the week, he pedals to and from work at 30mph, wearing mirrored wraparound shades. He spends his weekends cycling miles out of the city into the Home Counties, sometimes with a fellow Lycra-loving pal, together working those calf muscles until they look like taut chicken fillets. He used to race, but got bored with the argy-bargy – hundreds of grown men panting up hills? Pah! The Lycra Lad is only interested in making, and breaking, his own records. There is little life beyond the bike for this guy: it’s wheels first, women second – if they don’t like it, they can hit the road (more often than not, they do). He may even sleep in his Altura Gore-Tex jacket and padded shorts: for added testicular comfort. It’s a shame about his temperament. He may be in an otherwise impenetrable trance, but undercut him at a traffic light and he’ll scream your last rites at you. That said, he has a soft spot for anything on wheels. If you’re standing by the road covered in grease trying to fix a puncture, the LL will be the first to help, sorting you out in a nanosecond, before winking, adjusting the waistband of his new Rapha all-weather leggings, clicking his fingers at you and speeding off.

Where to spot them Kingsland Road. Where else?

No one wears statement accessories more proudly than a Hipster. Once upon a time it was a trucker cap, a keffiyeh or an obscure-band T-shirt. But a few years ago the ‘it’ item became a shiny bicycle with no gears or, even better, a fixie – a bike that doesn’t allow you ever to stop pedalling. The Hipster can be identified by the slouchy canvas rucksack, a tight jean leg rolled up to the knee (‘To stop the chain catching,’ but really to expose the ankle). Of course, there’ll be no helmet. Sod fracturing your skull – if you’ve spent 40 minutes deconstructing your curly fringe, Halfords can keep its protective headgear. Often Hipsters will appropriate a traditional courier look, complete with peaked bike messenger cap. They will move in packs, favouring the bike over public transport on a night out (even when venturing beyond Dalston), because it proves, as Hipsters often do, absolute dedication to the cause. Keen Hipster-spotters can catch them, lumberjack-shirted and skinny-jeaned, speeding up Kingsland Road at 3am on a Sunday morning. And you wondered how they stay reed-thin.

Where to spot them Struggling in heavy traffic, somewhere near the river

It’s getting sunny, which means Occasional Riders are easy to spot: they’ll be pedalling slowly on a deeply inappropriate bike – probably of the all-terrain variety, which they’ve owned since a brief yet fervent obsession at university. This once-adored creature is now a sorry sight: chain rusty, tyres soft and squidgy, breaks a-squeaking. The Occasional has no concept of road-sharing, leaving at least a metre between himself and the pavement, swerving and wiggling like a child on its maiden non-stabilisered ride. Since it’s sunny, they’ve gone the whole hog and pulled on a pair of flip-flops. They’ve never even heard of panniers: all their possessions are stuffed into pockets or an impractical leather and canvas bag swinging from the handlebars, throwing them further off balance. The Occasional only cycles twice a year: he is a terribly busy professional, normally from Chelsea, and is far more accustomed to the soft seats of black cabs than a hard saddle. There’s no flow with these chancers, no moving in rhythm with fellow road users and you have to make room for them because your life, quite literally, depends on it. They’ll often be wearing headphones, listening to Coldplay on loop, which makes for much bell-dinging on otherwise peaceful towpaths. Let’s hope they never buy that Brompton.

Where to spot them Weaving through Soho backstreets at 50mph

Like milkmen, bathroom attendants, cockle barrows and Geri Halliwell, cycle couriers continue to exist in spite of increasing irrelevance and rapidly declining demand for their services. Even though paper communication is on the way out and couriers have less to deliver than ever before, there’s no cyclist on the road so heavily romanticised. Others look on in awe as they glide through the city like Atlantic mackerel in the Gulf Stream. The courier is silent. He’s mystical. He’s a scrawny, greasy-legged beacon of fitness (he can cycle upwards of 70 miles a day) with street knowledge to rival any cabbie. Identifiable by the sticker-plastered walkie-talkie clipped to his backpack, but also by an inexplicable penchant for leggings worn under swamp-coloured combat shorts and matching fingerless gloves, it’s safe to say that the courier is no sartorial trailblazer, but who cares when you have near-Olympian fitness? In terms of road-sharing, the rivalry between couriers and taxi drivers is a wild, ugly battle that brings out the worst in both. To illustrate, there’s one, often spotted around the City, who boasts tattooed calves: one says ‘F**K’, the other ‘TAXIS’. It’s like the interminable battle of an urban Wile E Coyote and Road Runner. On wheels.

Where to spot them Wafting down Regent’s Canal

You know an Elsie. She’s the obscenely pretty girl gliding by on her pastel Dutch shopper bike en route to the office (she’s a junior copywriter at an advertising agency where you hot-desk and eat lunch at a huge communal table). Her hair is shiny, her ponytail has extra swish, her made-up face stays immaculate in the slipstream she creates with her effortless pedalling, outshining the pink cheeks of passers-by. She’ll be wearing a tight Breton top, large sunglasses and high wedges – for Elsie, the bicycle is not a merely a vehicle to get from A to B, it’s an extension of her style, like a Mulberry Del Rey, a flat white or a yappy dog (that may or may not get to travel in the wicker basket at weekends, along with several bundles of forced rhubarb, and a sourdough from Broadway Market). When she pushes off in that saddle, Elsie enters an enchanted world where dreary London streets become bustling Parisian markets and men hold their hats to their chests as she pedals past, in an effortless Audrey Tautou-esque way. Damn her, and her swishy hair. ES