Three weeks ago, my bluff was called. For the best part of a year I had talked earnestly about my intention to start cycling to work.

But somehow I never managed to get off my high horse and into the bike saddle: the comfort of the car retained its psychological grip.

Then came my birthday. I was the lucky recipient of a gleaming mountain bike, in stylish racing green. It was time for the talking to stop. It was time to replace petrol power with pedal power.

My last such journey had taken place some 12 years earlier. So the return to two-wheels was a shaky affair. Confused by the 10 gears and crippled by a lack of lung capacity, I managed to disengage the chain when I was halfway across Bishopthorpe Road. I barely had the energy to limp to the pavement in time to avoid a laughing psychopath in a Sierra.

Yet it was a liberating experience. Last week I cycled to work for the first time. I arrived unusually alert and pleased with myself. After the return journey, in a rainstorm, I arrived home unusually wet and disgruntled. My next outing will take place as soon as I have purchased a pair of waterproof trousers.

But the bike bug has bitten. And the positive propaganda from the organisers of National Bike Week has done more than enough to persuade me back into the saddle. The message of the week is that biking is healthy, environmentally-friendly and fun. Already one in three adults own a bicycle; there are thought to be 20 million bikes in Britain.

Unfortunately, many are going nowhere. "The message of National Bike Week is that cycling is fun and cycling is for everybody," said Paul Hepworth of the Cycling Touring Club (CTC) in North Yorkshire. "It's designed to encourage people to get their rusty bikes out of their sheds and give it a go."

The benefits are undeniable. Let's start with health. Someone who cycles at least 20 miles a week reduces his risk of heart disease by at least half compared to someone who takes no exercise. And that's not to mention the resulting reduction in unhealthy traffic fumes.

Then there's the bike's congestion-busting capabilities. The Department of Transport predicts the volume of traffic will increase by up to 142 per cent by 2025. Jams have serious knock-on economic effects, costing London about £15 billion a year. There can be no doubt that the jams down Bootham, Fulford Road, Blossom Street and elsewhere cost York dear.

And that does not include the financial and environmental expense of road building. Pressure group Friends of the Earth estimates that a four metre-wide cycle path caters for five times the number of travellers as a road twice as wide.

Campaigners also point to the benefits to the wider community of being cycle-friendly. Biking and walking allow social interaction denied to the motorist. Furthermore, in a country where a third of British households don't own a car, the bicycle is a form of transport available to most of the population.

Cycling, then, is healthy, socially beneficial, accessible, economically sound and environmentally friendly. So why are we not getting on our bikes? In Britain less than two per cent of journeys are on two-wheels: compare that to 10 per cent in Germany, nearly 20 per cent in Denmark and well over a quarter in the undeniably flat Netherlands.

A key reason is the widespread fear of taking to busy British roads on a bike. In 1971, two-thirds of junior school pupils cycled on local roads; by 1990, that figure had dropped to just a quarter. A survey of parents discovered that heavy traffic was their main objection to allowing their children out on a bike.

"A lot of people just consider routes too dangerous to cycle on," Paul Hepworth said. "They tend to leave their bikes in garden sheds. Other people would like to use them a bit more and go further afield if the conditions were better.

"It's also about finding somewhere to park your bike, and possibly somewhere to change your cycling clothes into a business suit."

York is leading the way in terms of providing facilities for cyclists. It was voted the most cycle-friendly city in Britain by New Cyclist Magazine and, unsurprisingly, this is a reputation the City of York Council is keen to retain.

"We have been trying to build a safe network of routes to make sure all cyclists can complete their journey in safety," said James Harrison, the city council's cycling officer. "There's an awful long way to go."

He is currently working to expand the cycle path network into the outlying villages, such as Haxby and Dunnington. But dedicated cycle paths provide only part of the answer. For much of their journey, cyclists still have to share the road with cars and lorries. One way to make such routes safer is to drop the speed limit, and some York suburbs have been made 20mph zones.

Where this is impossible, such as the cycle lane soon to be created along Tadcaster Road, road users will just have to start treating one another with respect. Motorists and cyclists, who have conducted a long-running battle in the Evening Press correspondence columns, must learn to live with one another for the good of the city, James said.

"We certainly don't condone people cycling on the pavement or going through red lights or any other anti-social behaviour, any more than we would condone anti-social behaviour from motorists. If all road users were to co-operate with each other, a lot of these problems would be avoided."

York's cycle-friendly approach is not confined to the council. National Car Parks has just opened a secure cycle park in its Fetter Lane facility.

And the rest of the country is beginning to catch on. Cycle charity Sustrans was awarded a £45 million Lottery grant to create a nationwide cycle network, much of which will be in place by the year 2000.

According to Mr Hepworth, more work needs to be done. He said the Highways Agency is reluctant to provide cycle crossing points on major routes such as the A64 and A19. But he acknowledged that over his four decades in the cycle lane, attitudes have changed - as a certain TV programme revealed.

"In the opening sequence of 1960s comedy The Rag Trade, you had Peter Jones, who's the boss, coming to work on a bike. Reg Varney, who was his underling, came to work in a great big Jaguar.

"The contrast was highlighted as a great source of amusement. I think attitudes have changed now and the cyclist is taken more seriously. I have even seen a car bearing the sticker: 'My other car's a bike'."

We cyclists have social status it seems. So the next time you see a man on a bike stranded in the middle of Bishopthorpe Road don't laugh - I'm doing my bit for York.

If you enjoyed this article by Chris Titley, why not take a look at his column in the FEATURES section?

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.