If somebody had said back at the end of March that we’d be looking at a month or more of almost unbroken sunshine, few road cyclists would have complained. Somehow, though, it is starting to lose its appeal. Not the sunshine; oh no. I’ll bask in any amount of that, especially at this time of year.

No; it’s the relentless that wind that has accompanied it for the last few weeks that is beginning to get a bit wearing. This isn’t one of those anti-headwind whinges beloved of Shiny Boy Arthur; I don’t mind ’em and even relish the odd encounter with a proper one.

It’s a whinge about the unending tedium of waking each day to find the same stiff breeze scouring the back garden, blowing over clothes driers and ineptly parked bicycles, whipping up dust, making unsettling buffeting noises around the eaves and generally making being outside an enervating experience.

If anything, the one time it’s not so bad is being out in it on a bike – going in any direction.