I really ought to be less intolerant

I have realised there is one thing I dislike more than dogs when I’m out cycling- and that's other cyclists. Not all of them, just those who dress up in Day-Glo Lycra outfits, and zip around en masse on their racing bikes. Here I am, pootling around Windsor Great Park of a Sunday morning, enjoying nature’s Autumn spectacle- when a pack of them whizz past, shouting to each other about ‘hydration’ and ‘optimum heart rates’.

You are not part of the Tour de France peloton, somewhere in the Pyrenees. And why are your outfits plastered in sponsor’s logos? Are you really being paid by IBM, Kellogg’s et al to wobble about on your 1cm thick tyres, with your face set in that steely jawed look you copied from the Gillette ‘the best a man can get’ advert you saw last night? In your head you’re Lance Armstrong, aren’t you? It’s not that much removed from running about with your arms outstretched, shouting, “look at me mummy, I‘m an aeroplane-vroom!!”

Clots.