A proficient way to make a name for myself?

How do people get letters after their names? I know that some work very hard to add Bachelor of Science (BSc) or Master of Arts (MA) to their nomenclature.

Some study Latin so they can be called to the bar to practise law as a Queen’s Counsel (QC). But what about the rest of us? How difficult is it to be made an MBE or an OBE? This was one of my thoughts as I cycled along the seafront with the wind in my hair. I hadn’t done cycling for an awfully long time. There was a spate when I decided to get fit a decade ago and bought a racing bike. But that didn’t last long.

Any attempt at wearing the coveted yellow shirt in the Tour de France quickly evaporated when I discovered how downright uncomfortable the razor-sharp saddles were. And the drophandlebars played havoc with my back.

I now have a hybrid, which sounds like a new-fangled electric car or a genetically modified sheep. It is neither and is designed for sensible comfort with state-of-the-art twist-grip gears to let me go up hill without running out of puff.

With hindsight, one of those battery-powered jobbies might have been better but they cost almost as much as my first house.

So I have been breaking myself in gently to the lost art of cycling. For those of us who have not yet succumbed to bodyhugging Lycra, it is one of the more civilised ways of seeing the world and keeping fit. We wave to each other and say ‘Hi’ from a socially responsible distance. Alas, not everyone appears to have taken their Cycling Proficiency Test. There are a lot of show-offs on the roads who ride without hands, which is fine in the circus but a tad irresponsible in the high street.

So I was delighted to learn the government is introducing free cycle lessons through the Bikeability scheme for those taking up cycling or going back to bikes.

It is also very good way we can all end up with letters after our name: John Nurden, CPT (Cycling Proficiency Test).