After a year without wheels, my legs have become reaquainted with the fiery burn of lactic acid and the chafe of a hard saddle. I’m not yet walking like John Wayne, but give it time. Hopefully the muscular pain will fade quickly and the pleasurable endorphin rush will take over. Soon, please!

I worked it out: a bike ride to and from work is exactly 23 miles. It feels like it, too. I reckon my ambitious plan to do this every day might have to be tempered somewhat. I think, till I get fitter, that I’ll do it three days in five. It’ll give me a fighting chance to recover from the exertion.

I don’t bike slowly – it goes against the grain. I completed my first 11.5 mile trip to work in 45 minutes. That’s an average of about 15mph fighting through the traffic, stop-start, stop-start. It dawned on me, as I was breathing in the fumes of a dinosaur of a lorry, that I didn’t have to follow the main roads to work just because they were the most direct. Where’s the fun in that?

On my way home, I’ll probably end up getting lost as I don’t intend to follow the beaten path whatsoever.

Time to put this baby through its paces….