I hope that it gives you really, really bad blisters.

(It cost £7 on eBay – couldn’t you have just bought your own?)

I’ve just been exploring a blog dealing with a slow but interesting ride from Whitstable to Hastings. Jean has medical reasons to be travelling slowly, but it also means that she’s getting to see a lot more, and talk to many more people, than do most cyclists.

(Personally, when I get on a bicycle, I’m usually trying to get away from the human race.)

Cycling across London this afternoon with 20-plus kilos of leaflets in panniers and backpack, and nasty headwinds, I was reminded of how often physics just isn’t on your side. Found myself plotting a route not just to avoid hills but slight inclines… was reminded of those warning messages on drug packs “may impair performance”.

In Paris last week I kept falling across construction sites with bike racks – lots of fancy bike racks, for the “Vélib” – an enormous scheme that starts tomorrow placing 10,600 bicycles for short-term hire at Metro stations.

For a 29 euro annual fee you can use a bicycle for up to a half-hour (long enough to get most places in Paris) for no further charge.

I’ve just been looking up the tourist options, and you’ll be able to get a seven-day licence for five euros – excellent value.

Wouldn’t it be great to see this in London?

Much more amusing than being there – French television is pulling out every cliche in the book: they’ve just been waxing lyrical about the statue of Queen Victoria in front of Buckingham Palace – not I would have thought anyone’s idea of beauty, and trotting out English and French bulldogs for comparison (the French are about a fifth the size…)

And now we’re getting about our thousandth helicopter shot of the London Eye.

And one of the cyclists is complaining British Airways lost his luggage. (Shows he should have caught Eurostar instead…)