A park-and-ride-scheme that's one of London's wonders

The Joys Of Modern Life; 2. Comedy Bicycles

WE HAD a gaggle of French exchange students in town last week, swapping cultures with my daughter and her coven of 10-year-old sophisticates, and we threw at them everything the English Tourist Board could offer: Buckingham Palace ("Eez vey beautifoo"), the Millennium Dome ("Eez vey beeg") and Kew Gardens ("Eez fool of naase fleurs"). They were appreciative, but their responses lacked a certain oomph. So by the third day, I made a resolve - the first tiny window that appears in their busy schedules, I'll introduce them to the London Recumbents and see what adjective they come up with for that.

The Recumbents is a one-man bicycle-hire company, but the bikes are spectacular. The first time I encountered them was one Sunday afternoon in Dulwich Park in south London. We noticed a peculiar, two-person cycle-chariot going by, pedalled by two relaxed-looking pubescents, and discovered it was for hire. The rest of the afternoon passed in a delighted blur. The chariots are called "Side-by-Sides", and can be pedalled by the most broken-winded middle-aged couple sitting as though in adjacent deckchairs (you can wedge a couple of children between you). You start out gingerly, sticking responsibly to the pathways; within 10 minutes, you're traversing the park at impossible speeds, whizzing past snoozing picnickers, with the children clinging for dear life, laughing like drains.

Instead of emerging exhausted from the exercise, you instantly try out the other half-dozen varieties: gleaming silver tandems, an impossibly tall Pedersen bike with a hammock seat, a sweet family machine that bolts two extra children on saddles behind an ordinary bicycle, a four-wheel taxi-bike that takes two passengers in Edwardian splendour. If there are enough of you, you can have a convoy of these Heath Robinson machines racing, whooping, across the grass.

They're the work of one man, Nigel Frost, a former Peckham train driver, who sold recumbent bikes (they're another variant - you lie supine on them and steer with your arms behind you) for six years before discovering it was easier to rent them, because they advertise themselves. He buys the things from Denmark and Holland, though the tandems come from Stratford and the cycle-taxis from Manchester. The Side-by-Sides were originally designed for "people with special needs" to ride - but everyone kept asking if they could have a go on them. I turned down three or four offers before the penny dropped. What's nice is that a granny and a two-year-old can be riding them one minute, then a couple of teenagers. They appeal to non-cyclists and to groups."

Mr Frost has been hiring his menagerie of funny cycles for just a year. They cost pounds 10 an hour, and you can only get them in Dulwich Park. "I've tried to do it in other ones, like Hyde Park, but the authorities tend to ban cyclists. The Dulwich authorities are much more enlightened about it."

And the French babes? Mon dieu, they loved it. They were souls in bliss as they careered all over on tandems and Side-by-Sides, scattering pigeons, harrassing squirrels and uttering shrill gallic cries. When, we asked what they'd most enjoyed about our charming nation (Covent Garden? Full English breakfast? Eastenders?) they replied in chorus, "Faire les bicyclettes! Fantastique!" Nice one Nigel.