NOTHING beats a Christmastime cycle ride. It might be sunny – frosty underfoot, while miles above aircraft vapour trails form fluffy lattices.

Or it might be blustery and spitting with rain, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is the feeling of freedom, a genuine sense of enjoyment at being a part of a neighbourhood rather than passing through it in the sterile boxes that are buses and cars.

You can smell the freshness in the air, feel the icy dusting of snowflakes on your cheeks and knuckles, hear the sound of water rushing over weirs.

As I ride along tow paths and bridleways, through parks and along little-known shortcuts, I often wonder if Oxford is unique in the range and quality of its off-road cycle routes. Certainly, no city I know of can boast even a fraction of Oxford’s phenomenal car-free network.

The beauty of bikes is they take you away from the greasy, car-choked main roads. In Oxford you can get literally anywhere in town barely touching a road. As the father of a toddler who loves her rear-pannier Pilot seat, this makes a big difference to the quality of our lives. Get around without going near a road.

From home near Divinity Road, there are two ways into the city that avoid the perma-clogged Cowley Road, the dangerous Plain roundabout and Magdalen Bridge with its jaywalkers so hard to miss when you’re hemmed in by double-decker buses.

Only a mile longer, but miles better, is the waterway along Barracks Lane to Cowley Marsh. It’s a quick hop across Cowley Road to a series of brookside paths past Florence Park to Iffley Road; another park leads to Meadow Lane and you’re at Donnington Bridge.

The relaxed way of river life unfolds before us. Then I notice Christchurch across the river, glimmering through the gloaming.

Over Abingdon Road, past the follies on the bridge and around to Grandpont Nature Reserve, we take a sharp right over an elaborate wrought-iron railway bridge and across Oxpens from where we follow the path alongside the Castle Mil stream over Parks Road and take the canal towpath north to Jericho.

Our circular trip home takes the back-route that leads from Cutteslowe down to Park Town, along wide shared-use pavements, past the Pitt Rivers and left past the university science area down to the track over the water-meadow path at Marston.

Then, it’s on through piles of golden leaves in Headington Hill Park and South Park and home.

Treat yourself this Christmas to your own winter wonderland ride and see how far you can get barely touching a road at all. Merry Christmas, one and all!