Wednesday night. We rise up on the three lane elevated autopista 100 metres above the ringroad. ‘We’ are one thousand and twenty bicycles. Wheels scything through the night. That unique sound of bicycle chains whispering in unison. ET film, choose scene: ‘Bikes across the moon.’ Behind, you can still see the cathedral illuminated like a gothic fairy castle poking into the sky. Above is a cheeky crescent moon. Below are slow snarling lanes of bum to bumper cars.

This is El paseo nocturno.  For one night the roads are closed for us. We do audacious things. Cycle ten abreast on a deserted motorway. Swing unimpeded around a roundabout as wide as a circuit of the Arc de Triumph. We occupy both lanes of the track by the smelly river. Tonight we do witchcraft and magic.  This glorious city opens its mouth, lays down, and we glide through prohibited places.

Now for the descent from the flyover but at the exact moment of our apogee the sky cracks open with multiple white veins. For two whole ecstatic seconds the lightening flashes print the sky purple and every mountain peak around the city shows it humps. There is an involuntary exclaim from the troupe like the ‘ooh’ at every firework display. Three enormous drops of rain fall on my handlebar.

Then down to humbler places. Past the scrap yard and the rows of wooden huts where the women stand in doorways holding babies, boys rev mopeds, men smoke butts with a tortilla in one hand: they look up and applaud as our apparition flows by. We go deeper into the urban backyard. Between the Holiday Inn tower and the deserted industrial waste land a 100 metre catwalk where ten beautifully made up prostitutes stand on platform heals with one leg arced against the brick wall. And two have the heart to wave to us, good natured, as our high profile paseo ruins their trade. By the gas station an old man is hobbling along with a drum and bangs a rhythm to our bikes and we cheer him on.

We enter the wide stately streets of Madero and head towards the finish. Four Purépecha coaches are parked in front of the cathedral following the demo to support Cherán. A hundred indigenous men and women are sitting on the kerb, chewing corn, drinking maize water, rolling up banners. Two men recognise me and wave. I stop and hug and say ‘¡seis!’ - my only word of Purépecha. We almost kiss and two blogs collide.

I am done. It is a kind of magic. At the end the growling cars, hesitant at first, slowly resume their control. The moon goes to sleep.