Most importantly, cycling keeps you alive. For an averagely healthy person, according to David Spiegelhalter, the Winton Professor of Risk at Cambridge University, an hour’s cycling adds about an hour on to your life, on average. Even the very slight risk of dying in an accident only takes a few minutes off that. It is good for you, and it gets you to work while you’re doing it. (There is nothing weirder than the sight of someone driving or getting the Tube to the gym and going on a running machine for an hour. Spending money to get somewhere you don’t want to be to do something you don’t want to do? Why not just cycle to a place you do want to be, or at least have to be, and cut out the nonsense?)