The bane of any cyclist's life is rutted roads and potholes. Councils nationally are notoriously bad at fixing small, apparently inconsequential holes. But, while neither buses nor bikes will disappear into a four-inch round hole, these are enough to wreck a bike's front wheel with varying degrees of consequence.

Cyclox receives dozens of complaints every month about the repair of the roads inside and outside the city. Part of the difficulty in Oxford is that the city has responsibility for repairing minor roads and the county does the major ones, but establishing whose jurisdiction certain roads are, can put off the most determined from reporting problems. Add to this the fact that some routes belong to other organisations - the University and British Waterways to name but two - and you can understand why getting some problems fixed could be a buckpassing nightmare.

In the past few weeks, the talk of the town has been of two enormous potholes in St Aldate's. Described variously as "craters" or "trenches", these superholes are so big that cars slow to bounce through them, and as for cyclists . . .

There's good news as well. The rutted High Street is under repair, and the Marston Ferry cycle track has been given a second lease of life. This path, from Ferry Road to the University Science Area, is popular with walkers and cyclists, enabling cyclists to bypass The Plain and Magdalen Bridge. The county council has upgraded it from a loose gravelled surface to a metalled one. In Oxfordshire, there are three ways to report potholes: 1. Call Oxfordshire Highways on 0845 3101111. The helpful staff will take reports on any highway problems and if the problems relate to a minor road, they'll pass the message on to the city council.

2. Cyclox, an underused though highly effective pothole-reporting system at http://www.cyclox.org/pothole_report.htm 3. By far the most fun, a new nationwide online pothole reporting system at fillthathole.org.uk It's run by CTC (the national cyclists' organisation) and it's received more than 3,000 reports in the few weeks that it's been operational.

CTC's Adam Coffman says: "Potholes and road defects are more than just a nuisance, they're a danger to cyclists. They're responsible for 12 per cent of compensation claims by CTC members, and local councils have a duty to fix them. But councils can't be everywhere, and if they don't know about a pothole, they can't fill it in. So if you want to get it repaired, report it at fillthathole.org.uk".

There's an off-road equivalent site at clearthattrail.org.uk You can peruse a Google map of reported and filled holes, and you can post pictures of the road fault you've reported. The website not only guarantees to get your hole patched up, but it tells you when it's been done. Now that's what I call a smooth ride.

Readers may like to peruse the Guardian newspaper's assessment of routes good, bad and ugly in Oxford. It'll be in their G2' section soon, probably this week.