WILL someone from the cycling community please explain why no cyclist (well, hardly any cyclist) who overtakes me, a slow-paced octogenarian, on the Thames Path, ever tinkles his or her bell to warn me of their approach? What else, indeed, are bells for?

Oldies like me can’t normally hear a cyclist coming up behind them and if I am suddenly passed at speed, as often happens, I get a shock and wobble.

That’s the sort of thing that happens to you when you’re long past the ability to cycle and have to use a walking stick.

Is there, I wonder, some idea among cyclists that the ringing of their bells is likely to be taken as an act of aggression?

I can hardly believe that, but how else can this cycling muteness be explained?

Dr Geoffrey Best, Buckingham Street, Grandpont, Oxford