I was called on Sunday afternoon by my mother-in-law, alerting me to the ‘Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100’ on the TV. An avid viewer of Homes Under the Hammer and daytime cookery shows, I hadn’t figured she was a cycling fan, but it just goes to show how far cycling has come – and how quickly.

The BBC dedicated no less than four and a half hours on Sunday afternoon to this extravaganza, the UK’s cycling event of the year – also covered in 111 other countries. Cycling is on the map. It has arrived.

The RideLondon-Surrey 100 was in fact one of four cycling events in the capital at the weekend. Swathes of central and west London were closed to traffic to allow traffic-free cycling.

Lord Mayor ‘Bozzer’ Johnson, who actually completed the circuit in under 12 hours, said: “The most important thing is to encourage people to cycle by making it safer. I hope the Government will look at this and think what can we do around the country to get people onto the roads and make the roads safer.”

I don’t mind admitting that I was snubbing the whole RideLondon thing as I’d entered the lottery for a ticket way back in February. My name was buried in the hat with those of hundreds of thousands of other hopefuls.

Ever since, I have been bombarded with a barrage of emails about the event, all – I admit – unread in spite. So I had no idea quite how massive it was until my mother-in-law’s reminder, which arrived as I was walking around University Parks. It got me thinking about how Oxford compares with schemes as huge and bold as RideLondon.

It was ironic that we had cycled to the edge University Parks with our daughter in her rear pannier-rack childseat, the dog trotting alongside on her lead. For some ridiculous reason, bikes are banned in the park.

After the walk, we collected the bikes and pootled over to Jericho for lunch via St Giles, the site last year of an exciting series of bike races. St Giles was closed to traffic for the day to allow riders in the Halfords Pro-Tour Series to use the street as a racing track. This could have become a great annual cycling fixture for the city, but there will be no repeat in 2013 thanks to complaints from one or more colleges bleating about being denied car access, or was it that undergrads couldn’t study because of the race announcer’s megaphone? I can’t remember and it doesn’t really matter. The point is, Oxford has so far failed to become a part of the national excitement around cycling – indeed some of its leisure facilities go so far as to ban them. There are 30-40,000 cyclists in this city. It’s time we made some noise and had some fun.

The ballot for next year’s Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 opens at www.PrudentialRideLondon.co.uk on August 12.