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I spent a couple of months just riding a bike doing my own training in the streets.

I've always like roadracing, but you know how it is in a family when you're young. They thought it was a little too dangerous so I started with Trials riding.

I've been cycling ever since I was a kid. I remember taking my cycling proficiency test aged seven - I got to school at 7:30 A.M. to practise, I was so nervous. After that, I always cycled to school.

I talked late, swam late, did not learn to ride a bike until college - and might never have walked or learned to drive a car if my parents hadn't overruled my lack of motivation and virtually forced me to embrace both forms of transportation. I suspect I was happy to sit in a corner with a book.

A lot of the biking sequences in the beginning, like going down the steps and over the ramp, I of course didn't do any of that stuff. I wish I could have but I didn't.

For years I drove cross-country, back and forth a dozen times, sometimes on book tour, sometimes just to get lost and found.

As a kid growing up - I can see now - it didn't matter what I did, as long as it was something I could be really good at. Cycling just happened to be the opportunity that came along.

My main form of transportation at that time was a bicycle, because bicycles could move though the crowd.

I began cycling round the Serpentine because it was the only closed route in London where I could ride traffic-free.

I used a bike in London and that's it. I learnt a lot about biking, and really got into. Now I cycle regularly.