Last week I finished my four-week course in bike maintenance, a free perk for members of the Oxford Cycle Workshop based in Magdalen Road.

I now know all there is to know about changing a puncture, lots about bike bearings and what to do when my gears start clanking.

It was a pretty steep learning curve. Previously my knowledge of bike engineering wouldn't even fill the back of a proverbial postage stamp.

The course is split into four sizeable chunks, with each session focusing on a different part of bike maintenance. Our sessions ran on a Tuesday from 6.308.30pm, which meant I could go straight from work, then out for dinner at one of the hundreds of food places in Cowley Road afterwards perfect!

The first session was on punctures and will probably be the most useful thing I have ever learned.

Knowing how to deal with a puncture is probably the sort of thing you can pick up in a book, but it was all the little handy hints that were really useful.

Now I can remove a tyre from a wheel without tyre leavers, be confident that a patched inner tube will last as long as a new one and I even know what all the different things in a puncture repair kit are supposed to be used for.

Session two focused on brakes. We all removed and inspected our brake pads and found out why you can hear some bikes coming for several miles before they reach you. I think this session probably made the biggest difference to my bike. I'd got so used to relatively loose brake pads that I just got into the habit of braking well before I needed to stop. Now my braking time is much faster and crucially much safer.

I couldn't wait for session three. Not because we were going to be doing gears, but because I managed to get yet another puncture on the day of this session. That was soon fixed and we were deep into the murky world of bike gears.

It took a bit of courage for me to start messing with these I was convinced I would end up rendering them completely unusable by the end of the session.

Thankfully, my worries were unfounded and my bike provided a lovely smooth ride home. We also learned how to take a chain apart and speculated on cool jewellery designs using a bike chain.

Last week was our fourth and final session all about bearings. I had no idea there was so much to know about the things that get me to work on time every day. I checked the bearings in my back wheel all fine and dandy thankfully.

The course was really good for me I'd recommend it to anyone, whether you know nothing about cycle maintenance or can get by. Seeing things through the eyes of a bike shop employee is always a good thing to learn. Here, I must pay tribute to the bike shop employee who taught us. The man had the patience of a saint. I can now plan some long-distance bike rides, safe in the knowledge that if anything does happen to my bike, I'll have some chance of working out what the problem is.