Another thought from last weekend’s trip to Amsterdam with eldest child. I never used to wear a cycle helmet, but I got one when I bought my road bike last year, because I now ride faster and harder, and I need one to comply with sportive rules. I’ve started wearing it more often when out on my town bike too, partly our of habit, partly out of solidarity with the kids. So I rolled into Amsterdam with a lump of polystyrene on my head.

Of course, I stood out like a sore thumb. No-one wears a helmet in Amsterdam. No lycra or ‘athleisure’ wear either – just ordinary clothes (although there were a few MAMILs outside the city dressed exactly as we do here in the UK). And everybody rattles along at quite a pace on those clunky-looking ‘Granny bikes’ – certainly faster than the stately 10mph at which Harry and I were trundling.

I’ve never understood the bile which parts of the UK media and public throws at cyclists. Calls for us to pay the mythical ‘road tax’, mandatory cycle helmets, insurance, registration plates. I can’t believe that so many people are so resentful that they aren’t allowed to drive a tonne and a half of pollution-spewing metal at 70mph without a few restrictions, that they think those who choose to push 10kg of alloy, emissions-free, at 12mph should somehow shoulder the same burden.

We will hit a tipping point of course. In the Netherlands almost every driver also rides a bike, so bike-bile doesn’t occur. (Well, it kind of does, as tourists who don’t know what they’re doing seems to wind up the locals – see pic). But I’ve found the same in organisations. Once a critical mass of people are involved in Sustainability, it becomes ‘the new normal’ and the resistance fades. But the key to getting that critical mass is to make the price of entry as low as possible – no mandatory cycle helmets, literally or metaphorically.