Cycling

Many pleasurable acts entail short bursts of ecstacy followed by guilt, self-flagellation, or attempts to mitigate. Eating a whole gateaux, for example, committing adultery perhaps, or a shopping spree. Cycling isn't like that. All the pain comes first as you mount a saddle more like a perch for a garden bird, attempt to warm up stiff and unwilling limbs, approach the base of a Sheffield potholed hill, get sucked into the vortex of a marauding First Bus, or simply experience the first taps of a polite hailstorm on the bare legs.

But later, perhaps on the downhill stretch you've arranged neatly on the home straight, or swishing smugly through queues of single-occupancy commuter cars, or freewheeling with the wind, but certainly as you recover with a bucket of tea and as much toast as you can shake a pump at, the elation kicks in.

Forget the hazards - I've been run down by white vans, I've bounced over the bonnet of a Corsa, had a BMW door swung into my ribs, flown ballet-like over the handlebars at 50mph thanks to a neatly placed chasm in the ashphalt - and the 95% pain; the 5% gain is beyond measure.

Not convinced? Good. This will sound awfully selfish, but I've been cycling for most of my 53 years. I've cycled right through the drought times when only the most insane pedalled anywhere, around London, most of Yorkshire, Northumberland, chunks of Scotland and Wales, up Holme Moss and Winnats Pass, mistakenly on the A1(M) once, deliberately the wrong way up the Seven Sisters Road once (once was enough) - and I have never been anything short of elated. Quite contented alone, equally so in the peleton. To be honest, if I feel depressed, I find it best to burn it off on my own up the nearest gnarly hill.

So cycling saved me, in a way. And saved others from me. Bear that in mind when you see the next lone cyclist on a rain-swept hill.