In hot weather, beware: a bicycle saddle can apparently reach 60C if left in the sun. Which, as any arts-graduate journalist can tell you, is twice as hot as 30C.
So here’s your Top Ten Tips on coping with the heat while cycling:
• When buying ice-lolly to eat while cycling along, choose safe, reflective flavour such as strawberry or lemon
• Stay cool emotionally by not shouting at car drivers whose air-conditioners will drown you out – concentrate on the open-tops
• Warmed-up fizzy drinks will spray a sticky mess everywhere if opened before they’ve settled – useful against pedestrians who cross on red
• Develop a taste for neat whisky to avoid transporting ice
• Car drivers stuck in jams get even more bad-tempered, so take games, quizzes etc to cheer them up
• Stick to medical guidelines of at least eight glasses of alcohol per day, and no more than three units of water
• Sunburn can be bad enough to warrant a day off work, so plan carefully
• Avoid showing embarrassing underarm wet patches by not giving hand signals
• Clear the queue for the shower on arrival at work by complaining about loss of taste and smell, coughing
• Wait three days till it gets cold and windy again