Mass participation rides are generally things I body-swerve, as part of the pleasure of cycling for me has always been the experience of being alone with your thoughts, but I took part in yesterday's Pedal for Scotland event as some of the guys from our youth club were keen to give it a try.
It was actually quite a fascinating experience, being on the road with such a diverse mix of people on bikes; skinny guys in lycra on high end road bikes, chubby mums on shoppers, some amazingly small kids, a wonderfully turned out gent on what looked like an old Pashley, hipsters on fixies and a wonderfully eccentric unicyclist. Given the sheer mass of people on the road, the whole thing was incredibly good natured; I think I only heard a couple of curt exchanges along the entire route.
A lot of people were obviously not used to cycling on roads, or in large groups, and I did see a few hairy moments with people changing lines and wobbling about. I did pass two separate accident scenes each with someone receiving attention from paramedics, but no idea what happened - hope both riders are on the mend as we speak.
The whole thing was pretty well marshalled, well signed and well supported. Good buzz at the finish, and riding through the actual stadium to reach the finish line was a nice touch.
The only real downer on the day was round about Linlithgow, where myself and one of the other guys picked up punctures - on closer investigation we both found drawing pins in our tyres, so I suspect that some petty-minded loser has been scattering tacks on the route. In both cases the flat tire was on a flat section of the route, so it was a minor inconvenience, rather than posing any real danger.
The four young lads who we took along absolutely loved it, and are now talking about how we can get together some road bikes to try the Sportive route next year. My wife had a bunch of our younger kids on the Glasgow SKY ride, and several of them are keen to try the 50 miler next time. For our guys at least, it does seem like the event has achieved its aim of encouraging more people to get into cycling, which has to be a good thing 
