Cycling

If you are looking for legitimate ways to raise your endorphin count, you need look no further than cycling. Of course, having a good bike definitely helps and with 24 gears and shock absorbers, she's better than good.

As cyclist, you are free to ride where you please and thank goodness Reading Council has deemed cyclists worthy and has created cycling paths for us. The only snag is, that sometimes these paths can end pretty abruptly and we are then forced to mix with the 2+ wheelers.

Pedestrians are the most unpredictable. You can be riding behind someone and all of a sudden, they will come to an abrupt halt and as you take evasive action to avoid a collision, they will decide to continue on their merry way oblivious to the mayhem they have caused. Pedestrians, like water, will fill any space and when they stand 3 abreast blocking your path while they have a natter, it's enough to give you pavement/sidewalk rage.

Then there are the 2+ wheelers who take exception to you whizzing past them and block your path - a bus actually did that to me so I was unable to surpass my then maximum speed of 34 km/h.

Since I got my cyclocomputer, I have reached a maximum speed of 69.2 km/h (I really can't remember going so fast!!) and clocked 404.27 km and which may not be enough to offset the carbon footprint I'll create as I fly to continental Europe, North America, Latin America and back, but it's a start.

I think I may need to invest in a rearview mirror because turning one's head is a bit of a no,no especially when you come to a roundabout T-junction. On Sunday, I had turned my head over my right shoulder as I approached the roundabout and saw a car indicating that it wanted to turn left. I knew I could cross the road before the car turned, but in the time it took me to face the front, another car had made a right turn at the roundabout so I had to make a sharp right turn to avoid any third party damage to my bike - I stayed on the bike so my sense of balance is pretty good.

Q: Why is a cyclist like the mother of a toddler?
A: They both need eyes in the back of their head