at bay. Good for you, I thought. Way to take it on. Only this week, I was talking to a friend about this, and he told me: "You know I was a bit larger before I started cycling?"

I'd never heard his story. He was 29 years old and his 182cm frame was carrying 125 kilograms. He tried swimming, he tried the gym, but nothing was working for him until he bought a cheap bike and started doing laps of the local park. "My first ride was a disaster," he laughed. "The tyres were flat, I had to stop after about a kilometre, a dog bit me ..." But he kept going, reached new levels of fitness, and has never looked back. It's not only men, of course. Ithink of the mother-of-three I spoke to on the train back from the Sydney to the Gong event. She'd got up at 4am in Berowra, far to the city's north, driven for close to an hour to get to the start in St Peters, then cycled the 90km and was now on the long journey home. She'd always wanted to attempt a long ride, was looking for a safe way to do it, and signing up for an organised ride was her motivation – even if it was a dawn start on the other side of the city. Props. And the most admirable thing about everyday cyclists is that they keep going despite the negativity that often surrounds the simple act of getting on a bicycle.

It's the mocking