It's all about the Bike !

Since the London 2012 Olympics I have taken a greater interest in cycling. It was the excitement of track cycling that was the catalyst. The tactics and spectacle of competition in the velodrome provoked my interest. In recent weeks this has spread further into road cycling aw well.

Our recent two week stay in Crete gave me the opportunity for a spell of concentrated reading. I started with Victoria Pendleton's autobiography, I'd started it before our journey but it's such a compelling story that I'd finished the book almost by the time we'd arrived in Crete. I'm not at all surprised that the book has been short listed for sports book of the year, it delves deeper than most autobiographies, and recently I compared it with Tony Adams "Addicted" as a book where the author gets beyond a catalogue of competitions & championships.

I progressed onto Chris Hoy's autobiography, a more straightforward account than Pendleton's but enjoyable, and particularly interesting in the early chapters where Hoy was trying to progress in a sport unfunded where practice was anything but easy. That Chris hoy has become Britain's greatest olympian this year means that I'm sure the book will be updated in the near future.

Finally I became engrossed in David Millar's book " Racing through the Dark".  This is very much the rise,fall and rise again story of a road cyclist. For most people the pages blow the lid off the secret world of road cycling.

I've also started getting the bike out of the garage. So far this has been simply to cycle down to the village to get the morning paper, but I've become interested in cycling around the area. My gear work needs work to ensure that I can climb even the meagre hills that Essex offers.

On my way to get the morning paper Inoticed that there was no where to park bicycles securely in the village. While I don't want to over emphasise the risk of theft, but with the number of people cycling increasing this is a facility that we should provide, and so I have now taken it up with the local parish council.

This week I've started to research social cycling and the possibility of establishing a social group in my village. Perhaps I'm not alone and there may be others who'd like to cycle around the area, but are reluctant to go out on their own.

Yesterday I listened to the two hour % Live programme on Doping in Cycling "The Peddlers". This week the axe finally fell on Lance Armstrong. From American hero and respected international campaigner for cancer survivors to disgraced sports cheat. The evidence points to the fact that he systematically doped his way to seven Tour de France wins. As I'm starting to research cycling round the country lanes of Essex, the news is full of EPO, blood transfusions and speed.

Sadly Armstrong's crimes throw a cloud over the whole of the sport; yet since the olympics over a million more people have taken to cycling. On Monday I found myself in Kensington High Strret in central London, amidst the buses and traffic , a strady stream of cyclists were commuting to work on two wheels. Cycling is booming, yet more needs to be done. Many more people would cycle if they felt safe on the roads, the number of serious injuries and fatalities is a major deterrant to developing a cycling culture in Britain.

In the Netherlands there 1.1 bicycles per head of population, is there really any good reason why Britain should not follow this example and go Dutch !