Is there a God? Of bicycles?

I suppose it serves me right for writing to the Ham&High and the CNJ about the need for more cycling paths. I got my first bad press - a letter from an ex-Tory councillor complaining about overpampered and dangerous cyclists. Does he really not know that riding a bike is de rigeur in Cameron's Conservatives? But whilst a stinky letter is to be expected now and again what happened this weekend was not.

My fiancé Laura and I bought new bikes on Friday. We're taking part in a charity ride from London to Paris in August on behalf of Children with Leukaemia so we thought we'd better get some new bikes and some practice. So off we set, at 7am on Saturday morning, heading for Paddington to catch the train to Worcester, and from there a 100km bike ride across Herefordshire to a delightful looking organic hotel-cum-farm. The perfect weekend off.

Sadly however the god of bicycles had other ideas. I got my first puncture in St John's Wood which meant we missed the train because the last time I changed a tyre was about 20 years ago! So we decided to cut our losses and take the train to Hereford thereby reducing the ride to 30km. Eight punctures in my back wheel later I gave up and called the hotel who picked me up in a car.

EIGHT punctures? Surely that's something of a world record. Does Norris McWhirter actually need to be on the bike in order to register me in the Guinness Book of Records? The one upside was that on the way we met a delightful couple who served us tea and cakes, as well us donating us a bicycle repair kit. Because you know what - the repair kit we'd brought was about 20 years old. Well, I did say the last time I fixed a puncture was 20 years ago!

Four inner tubes, eight punctures, all in different places. Is that unlucky or what? It wasn't a protruding spoke head and there was no sign of glass or nails or anything sticking through the tyre. It was a complete mystery. But we're tough. The next morning we patched up all four inner tubes and prepared to leave for Hereford station. Oh no you don't - the ninth puncture struck before we'd even left! So much for our cycling weekend - it was more of a puncture repair workshop. The hotel came to our rescue again and shipped us to Hereford.

Enough already. But no there's more. The front tyre burst in sympathy on the train back to London. That's ten punctures in about two hours of cycling. I can only assume that the ex-Tory councillor who complained about me supporting cyclists is into voodoo magic.