The camel - always better than a bike in the Sahara Spring IS here finally - and along with the daffs and chirping sparrows, the fair-weather cyclists are back, in their thousands. I for one welcome them. It's been a cold, wet, lonely, winter pedalling through snow, slush and seasonal temperatures. I managed to negotiate the arctic conditions without disaster apart from one fall in the middle of Richmond Park when my front wheel bobbled out of a rut in the ice and slithered sideways into the frozen pothole at the edge of the concrete path. I was unceremoniously dumped onto the dirty white snow, where blood from my gashed knee marked the scene of my tumble with a bright red, Tarantinoesque, puddle of gore. Calamity-free it may have been, but winter commuting on two wheels, has also been an often unpleasant ordeal - as usual. Is it my imagination or do car drivers pay less attention to cyclists when the weather turns nasty? It's not as if THEY are being lashed by the rain or b...

Point of view is everything. Perched on the saddle, rushing past lines of jammed traffic in London’s rush-hour, I feel supremely confident. I have twenty years of cycle commuting in the city to draw on. But take a step back, perched on a dining room stool, surfing through bike videos on the Internet and I seriously start to get the “fear”. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents ( ROSPA ) says that nearly three quarters of all cycling accidents “happen at, or near, a road junction ...” and cites roundabouts as being, “...particularly dangerous junctions for cyclists.” I have been knocked over twice at junctions; once by a car pulling out in front of me and more recently, by a flatbed truck turning left sharply and running over my bike with its rear wheels. If you won’t take my word for the anarchy which reigns out on the roads, just turn to the Internet. Lots of bicycle commuters these days ride with small video cameras fixed to their helmets, handlebars or bike frames. Many...