This Friday the journey will make history. Everyone gathers in Assomaton Square in Thissio, waiting with anticipation for the adventure to begin, snacking gazing at the Acropolis a short distance away. The lighted Parthenon at night makes the eyes glow with the reflection of Greek heritage. But then the clock strikes 10, and it is time to say goodbye to the Acropolis, hop on our bikes and – night whispering our course in our ears – to get the party on-the-go started.

This is the Freeday Event, where anyone with a bike can set Friday nights on fire by joining riders who head for a different destination every week. The Event carries you in security and organization through the streets of Athens, giving you view of the city you can’t see through the window of a car, as you get fit and have fun with friends. This Friday’s destination is Salamina or, as the cyclists say, “Salamykonos”, a challenging course by the ride’s standards.

The bikes start rolling out of the alley. Police officers prepare Piraeus Street by blocking the cars and leaving space for Freeday riders to sluice out and conquer the road with their wheels. The whoosh of the wheels accelerates. Cars vanish. Music blares from a speaker that one rider has attached to his bike, forcing us to pedal in time. As we race through the city, the world stops moving; problems don’t exist; Athens unfolds in front of our eyes, pulling us into its depths. The breeze hugs the cyclists and stimulates their senses, stroking their heads, spraying them with the scent of night flowers, and carrying the heartbeat of the city to their ears.

“I feel free, you see things you cannot see when you are in a car or when you are walking and you have a different perception of the space around you,” says Dimitris Rizos, 26, one of the organizers of Freeday.

The mass hits Stadiou Avenue. We stop and are checking the traffic when one driver loses his temper, gets out of his car, and slams the door the door: “What the hell is going on? Where are the police? Where are the police?” he yells.

“It’s Freeday you idiot. Go read a book or something,.” a cyclist rejoind. Rizos says the Event requires both sides to give a little, with cars perhaps giving a little more: “According to Article 41, Freeday is a festive procession and shouldn’t stop at traffic lights or be interrupted.”

As the ride moves down Syngrou Avenue, pedestrians stop to watch. “Where are you going?” one of them asks,

“To Thessaloniki and maybe later to Evros”, a rider responds, making us laugh.

“Stop it you, we are going to Salamykonos,” another cyclist says.

Sotiris Barahs, 30, a newbie member, says the ride returns you to “a way of life we have forgotten for a long time.” He says that out on the road you relax and get away from the routine problems of daily life.

We are approaching Perama port when the scenery changes: buildings have faded, their place taken by the sea. The road narrows and blackness awaits. Tunnels ahead of us lay our path from a distance, breaking the abyss into parts. Voices and giggling fluster the quiet nigh, and bells sing with our hearts. One cyclist does the wheelie, which is against the rules of Freeday.

And for good reason, apparently: he pays for his enthusiasm with a bone-cracking fall to the pavement. Accidents happen. “During a ride to Piraeus a girl hit her brakes abruptly and the guy behind her tried to avoid her and smacked into a stopped van, breaking his leg,” Vasiliki Lioka, 28, recalls.

According to the Ministry of Citizen Protection, in 83 cyclists were slightly injured in Athens in 2010. Three suffered from serious injuries and 11 died in accidents. “We do have a lot of somersaults, but nothing deadly,” Rizos says reassuringly. The serious events on a Freeday ride have not been the injuries, but rather the couples I know who met during the ride and are getting married.”

Darkness descends and pace slows. We are at the port of Perama, on our way to the boat. It must be around 1 am, but who has the energy to check their watch? Legs ache and tremble, hands have swollen from the pressure, it’s cold, and pain shoots through just about every part of your body. The breeze is not a friend anymore. It freezes the body and sucks up any speck of strength left. But the moon smiles and urges us on. Our goal is only five minutes; the journey has not been in vain. We get on the boat and the deck fills up with bikes and bodies lying down to rest. Gulls form a white ballet in the darkness, congratulating the children of the night.

We are in Salamina, the site of a battle that helped shape Western civilization. In the Battle of Salamina in the Saronic Gulf in 480 BC, the Greeks fought the Persian Empire for the third time. After the unsuccessful battles in Plataea and Mycale, the Persians were determined to decimate the Greeks. But thanks to Themistocles’s plan to surprise the enemy in Salamis to protect Peloponnese, the Persians lost 300 ships, their plans of conquest sinking with them.

Discovering a land and conquering it gives you a sense of achievement. “If someone does not experience it he cannot understand,” Rizos says. “I have a silly enthusiasm, like a little boy waiting for his birthday gift. If I had the time I’d cycle around Europe. It’s not hard. It’s all in your mind. When we love something so much, it is because it gives us our freedom.”