In the realm of human – inanimate object relations the bond between a cyclist and their bicycle is a special one. For a start, you have to trust that it will turn when you want it to, you have to trust that it’s not going to send your knee smashing into your handlebars when you give it some welly (any seasoned cyclist would have experienced that one!) and perhaps even more importantly, stop when you ask it to nicely. After many years of riding the same bike your body grows and moulds itself to the machine and to a degree, you do become “one” with it.

This is my bike, a 2002 Kona Muni-Mula (named Muni-Mula because it (nearly) spells Aluminium backwards, and that’s what it’s made out of) . We’ve been together for eleven years now and I love her today more than ever. (I’m half smiling as I write this but it’s true!) You don’t see many mountain bikes on the streets of London and I suppose there’s a clue as to why in the name: London has many things but one thing it doesn’t is mountains. Even so, I still think this is a great bike for urban riding. It’s light, it has front suspension to cope with London’s far from marble smooth roads, it’s comfortable (I rode Land’s End to John O’Groats on it a few years ago, 1,017 miles over 2 weeks) and (to me) it looks really cool. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I love my bike.