Triumphant Lime Bike jouster ‘closed his eyes’ before knocking off rival in trendy London park

A pair of daring influencers competed in a ‘Lime Bike’ joust in what is believed to be the first event of its kind in London.

The contest, saw Camtholomew the First and Jack Carden take each other at London Fields park in Hackney.

The pair both rode the familiar green rental bikes while dressed as knights with armour, red and black cloaks and visors, in a modern twist on the medieval martial game, traditionally played on horses.

A clip showed a large crowd watch on as the two armour-laden men hurled themselves at each other while carrying spears.

Carden, who won the best-of-three duel, said the experience of cycling with a large helmet over his head was a ‘weird feeling’.

The New Zealand-born artist had previously orchestrated performance art set pieces such as a humanoid robot walking around the capital.

Explaining how it felt under the visor during Saturday night’s standoff, he told Metro: ‘You’re very in your own head, quite literally, when you’re in the helmet, because all you can hear is your own breath echoing of the internals of the helmet.

‘You can’t see very much at all. It’s very cinematic. It’s this thin strip of reality.

‘I think as you’re hurling yourself at another man with a crowd of a thousand people around you, you sort of just dissociate [sic] a little bit and close your eyes for the three seconds prior to impact.’

Both men managed the challenge safely, although Camtholomew did pick up a minor injury, but remains in ‘good spirits’ despite losing the duel, Carden said.

Carden added that some 100,000 people – enough to more than fill Wembley stadium – had initially expressed interest in watching the contest, forcing them to limit attendance to around 1,000 spectators due to the ‘potential for chaos’.

To prevent things from getting out of hand, the venue was only shared with the 1,000 park attendees 20 minutes before the event.

A waitlist to find out the venue quickly gathered a further thousand interested Londoners.

‘I suspect if we had publicised it fully we would have had easily 10,000 people show up’, Carden said.

Given the huge interest, the pair are planning a rematch.

Metro has contacted Lime Bikes for comment.

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