Last month, Mary Clarkson, the Lord Mayor of Oxford, gave me and four others an Oxford Green Travel Award. Not that I really deserved it to be honest, but I accepted it on behalf of all at Cyclox as, together, we manage to keep the cycling flag aloft.

The prizes, electronic ‘keys’ for 12 trips to/from London, were donated by both Oxford Bus Company and Stagecoach. A month’s travel in the city wouldn’t have been much use to someone who cycles everywhere because it’s quicker, but these passes were welcome indeed, allowing passengers to take bikes with them to London 24-7. Perfect.

For me, the person who most deserved the prize was Ianto Cannon, a schoolboy at Cherwell. He cycles four miles each way from his home in Iffley Fields to school. He’s done a lot to raise awareness of cycling by organising sponsored rides and doing talks at his school – even one at Brookes – about cycling.

The people who set up OxCar, the East Oxford car club, got a well-deserved prize.

Their scheme has replaced 70 individually owned cars with a small fleet of shared cars. That’s great news at pavement-level in East Oxford, and clubs are springing up in North Oxford, Headington and beyond. In future, most people, whether in the city or the countryside, will have access to car clubs.

The contractors Amey won a prize for getting their staff cycling and for ‘greening’ their large cargo fleet. And Oxford Brookes University got one for the subsidised Brookes Bus service and cycling incentives at the Headington campus such as their 2,500 bike racks.

They do a great job up at the top of the hill. It’s a pity that at the bottom of the hill, along Cowley Road, the start of the Brookes term is immediately noticeable by the doubling of traffic volumes.

The streets teem with hundreds of new Minis replete with Wheatley parking permits and pro-fox hunting window stickers. What can be done to get these indolent little tykes out of their parents’ spare cars?

Accepting my prize, I said how Oxford needed a properly connected cycle network – and how we must have cycle hubs at Carfax and the new Westgate.

Cycle hubs are places where 300-1,000 bikes can be parked cheaply indoors, dry and secure, perhaps with a bike shop tagged on for repairs while you shop. Hubs free up space in the free on-street cycle parking racks and they reduce cycle theft. Hubs say to cyclists, “You matter. How you transport yourself matters. Whether you’re here for business or for leisure, commuting or shopping, you are welcome: park here.” Cycle hubs are the sort of civic amenity that any decent city should have.

In Japan, the transport interchanges have giant underground automated cycle hubs. You ride your bike up to a street-level kiosk and key your pin into a keypad. A door opens and a pair of robotic arms reach out and clasp your front wheel. The bike is pulled into a lift, the doors close, and the bike is whisked off somewhere in a 30-metre deep underground bunker that can take up to 6,000 bikes.

Sci-fi? Not any more. Cool? Über. For Oxford? Definitely.

Soon, Oxfordshire will find funding for giant underground automated bike hubs underneath Carfax and Broad Street. I mention this now to give the archaeologists a five-year head start on their excavations before we start digging!