The other day, I found myself cycling along the Oxford Eastern Bypass. Quite inadvertently, I might add.

It's 7am on the first day of my new fitness regime, and I'm feeling virtuous.

My regime takes in a few miles of ring road cycle track which, between the BMW works and Headington, isn't bad.

I head out of town along Cowley Road and turn left at the Garsington Road roundabout.

I've only ever gone around the ring road by car, and I expect to access the cycle path from the same place that cars access the ring road. Wrong.

Once you're on the roundabout, there isn't an exit on to the cycle path. I cycle up the ramp and find myself sharing one mile of the ring road with bad tempers, spilt diesel and early-morning white van drivers who aren't exactly sympathetic to my innocent error.

What is it about drivers with "Driven Carefully?" stickers that turns them into subnormal louts? For "Driven Carefully?" I shall hencefoward read "aggressive psychopath" and steer well clear. Now I know how the hedgehogs feel.

It transpires that you are supposed to get on to a pavement cycle path 20 metres before the roundabout. I think the planners must assume that you're already on the pavement cycle path - I avoid pavements. A small arrow on the road indicating this exit would lengthen the lives of future ring road cyclists.

The path is good for sports cycling - wide and smooth. The main advantage of cycling around the ring road is that, as in a car, you don't have to stop continually at lights or give way to other vehicles.

On the cycle path, this is especially true. At peak times, there are so many traffic jams that cyclists often get around it more quickly than car drivers, although lots sweatier.

The discomfiting thing about the ring road cycle path is the speed and proximity of the trucks and cars. The wall of foliage on one side and the cacophony of vehicles on the other make this route less appealing than it could be.

I eye enviously that new concrete barrier which separates the motor vehicle carriageways. On a bike, you really wish they'd put that barrier between the cycle path and the road, not between the lanes of traffic.

My error in cycling along the cars' part of the ring road has made me realise that there aren't actually any roads within the ring road where any cyclist needs to worry that much.

Cowley Road remains hectic and is frequently paralysed, and the curtain of buses along High Street is grim.

But there is no reason that any cyclist, adult or child, shouldn't be able to cycle on any roads in the city, especially if they've done a cycling proficiency training course. Trained cyclists take a safe position in the road - one metre from the kerb - NOT in the gutter.

Any cyclist who is able to ride straight, and look over their right shoulder without wobbling, should be fine.