It was Monday 19th September 1964 and I was miserable. I’d just been sent  to boarding school, the first few nights in this new environment had been tough, and I’d already received the first of many ass-kickings. As I stumbled out into the school-yard for the first break of the new term I saw something that blew all that pain away and in an instant I was madly, deeply in love. The object of my affections stood quietly against the wall ignoring the stares of all the boys and I knew that nothing so beautiful, so perfect and so shapely would ever be mine…

The vision that left me gasping for air was something I’d never seen in real life though I had furtively stared at pictures when my parents weren’t looking. There in front of me was a brand-new bright blue Raleigh racing bicycle with TEN GEARS! The bike was fitted with Campagnolo gears front and back and centre-pull brakes. The brake and gear cables were all perfectly routed and the white tape wrapped around the handlebars seemed as if it were made of the finest leather. Most importantly the saddle was high and the bars were low – though it was simply leaning against a wall it looked faster than Concorde.

In the years since that moment I have never stopped staring at bikes and the folk who ride them. I have seen whole families and pigs strapped to the backs of rusty workhorse velos in Vietnam, I have ridden with fifteen foot tall bikes in Los Angeles and been passed by blind riders in the lea of the Sussex Downs. I have seen huge women hauling groaning mountain bikes along Antipodean beachfronts and I have stared in awe at rail-thin professionals hurtling past me on Alpine passes. And now I am about to embark on my craziest biking adventure yet – a film about cycling – an adventure that I expect to last me at least two years.

I’m sure I will see thousands of bikes and return home with many tales to tell, but I doubt any of those machines will quite take my breath away the way that blue Raleigh 10-speed did back in 1964.