I LOVE a good bookshop and Oxford has its fair share of them. In my student days I justified spending my hard borrowed cash on books even if they weren’t relevant to my subject, somehow having physical books around you makes you feel more studious.

My favourite hangouts to pick up these cheap but inspiring pages were the Oxfam bookshop on St Giles or the delightful Last Bookshop in Jericho.

Now I am a hardworking, upstanding member of the 9-5 brigade I have started boldly shopping in the “proper bookshops” the ones that make sure there are tables of 3 for 2 offers to counteract the heart attack you have when you reach the till with your arms full.

Most purchases make it home and spend the year silently chastising me from the bookshelf as the dust settles, but some become dog-eared and loved.

One book that was worth every penny, the subject will come as no surprise was the Design Museum’s Fifty Bicycles that changed the World by Alex Newson.

At first glance it’s destined to live by the toilet, small and light with equal pages of pictures to text but as you delve into its limited one hundred or so pages you are transported into a virtual bicycle museum with bicycles spanning more than a century.

The emphasis is on bikes or components that have become design classics or showed innovation that has changed the cycling experience for the masses. Bikes we all know and love such as the Dawes Galaxy, the Brompton, Pinarello’s Dogma and even the Raleigh Roadster have made it into this cycling bible, not to mention other brands such as Specialized, Vanmoof, Airnimal, Schwinn and Bianchi.

To the unsuspecting eye this book’s contents would all be in museum by now however look closer and you will see these bikes still on the streets of Oxford. I have always been astonished at the longevity of bicycles in Oxford, where other cities like to replace and upgrade Oxonians prefer “vintage”, many bikes that come through the door of my workshop are celebrating over twenty years of service.

Through the years I have seen amongst others, Mk1 Raleigh Choppers, eighty year old Omafiets, BSA paratrooper bikes and the innovative aluminium Klein mountain bike.

Unlike redundant inventions such as VHS, tapes or fax machines the form of the bicycle remains the same and although some like to collect them, most Oxonians like to run them into the ground.

With all these amazing bicycles on our doorstep, an Oxford gathering to celebrate the passion for them seems only fitting, everything from old Racing bikes, old Clunkers, folding bikes to utility bikes in one place, to me that’s a vision of heaven.

I am not alone in my love of the classic bicycle, the Oxford Transport Museum has recently added a cycle division to its collection and you can see bikes dating back to 1876 at the museums headquarters in Long Harborough.

Fifty Bicycles that changed the World despite being pocket sized and brief would be on my desert island reads if I had to compile one, I’ll never get bored of turning its pages because for me the contents are still living history in Oxford.

Sometimes you don’t even know you have a classic until you identify it, this book makes sure they are not forgotten.