I have just spent a whole week out of the saddle. It’s not often I go so long without cycling as it’s a daily occurrence for me normally. But, being tucked away in rural France with the family for a week, meant no riding... period.

It was the strangest sensation, jumping back on my bike, it was almost dream-like. I know it sounds like an exaggeration, but I suddenly felt like I was floating on a cloud, sitting in an armchair that I could propel along with my own energy. That week, spent with only my two feet to get me around, was slow moving and monotonous. To be back on two wheels was exciting and adventurous, even if it was only to go to the local corner shop.

I suppose you don’t appreciate something until you are without it for a while. I certainly missed whizzing around, instead of plodding. Day trips in the car left me with a sore back, itchy feet syndrome and a lacklustre experience of the surrounding countryside. How anyone survives full time without a bicycle in their lives really is beyond my comprehension.

Although I loved every minute of my holiday, bar the car journeys of course, I felt that with a bike I could’ve explored better. Just walking into the village was a mission and a half, but by bike, well, it’s so much quicker and simpler and who would choose a tin can car or bus over the opportunity to have the wind in your hair and freedom to roam. I love meeting people who have just got their first bike in Oxford. They act as though they’ve passed a secret initiation and a whole new world has opened up in front of them. “Why didn’t I do this sooner” and “Oxford is so much better by bike” are phrases I hear from these newbies.

I did contemplate taking a bike with me, just a small folding one that no one would notice. But with the hire car packed to the seams with aunts, brothers, nephews and their holiday clothes, leaving granny behind for the sake of a bike ride seemed a bit mean. Holidays for me usually consist of picking a good place to ride and then getting some kind of transportation to that spot, but to be honest working in the bike trade that kind of getaway is only really a busman’s holiday. Watching the little French lady next door cycle off to collect her pain au raisin each morning left me green eyed with envy. Lucky she locked it up when she wasn’t using it. The jealously may have prompted a unauthorised borrow of her little shopper.

Perhaps it was good to have a little break from my bikes and daily riding. It certainly made me appreciate the existence of the bicycle more, not that I would ever take the best invention of mankind for granted. I just forget its importance every now and again. To be back on my bike feels as if the depression has lifted, there is light again where once there was only darkness of an inside of a car. Next holiday will not be without bike, Granny will have to cradle a Brompton on her lap.