Olympic champion and Tour de France yellow jersey wearer Chris Boardman came under fire this week for not wearing a helmet while riding a bike on a BBC programme about cycling safety.
Boardman was shown pedalling around the streets of Manchester with presenter Louise Minchin as he shared his tips for safely navigating Britain's cities on two wheels.
While Minchin wore a cycle helmet and bright yellow high-visibility jacket, Boardman was sans headwear and sporting dark clothing. Outraged viewers took to social media, branding him "a fool" and "stupid".
Boardman, who is a policy advisor for British Cycling, later said on Facebook that he didn't wear a helmet because they "discourage people from riding a bike" and "you are as safe riding a bike as you are walking". He added that he wants "bikes to be for normal people in normal clothes".
As someone who writes regularly about cycling, I can testify that there are few topics guaranteed to raise hackles more than the subject of helmets and high-visibility clothing.
I've received disparaging comments for being photographed wearing a helmet and been at the heart of heated debates on Twitter for daring to say I favour high-vis garments while cycling on dark winter nights.
I'm pretty certain that if Boardman had plumped for a helmet and high-vis jacket he would still have received flack - simply from a different set of detractors.
It's a political hot potato and one I find increasingly tedious. When it comes to cycling attire on these shores, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.
One chap recently worked himself into such a frenzy over his dislike of high-vis that he compared those who argue its merits as being in the same vein as victim blaming when it comes to a woman's choice of clothes. It's at moments like that I'm grateful for the block button on Twitter. There can be no comparison between cycling and misogyny. But it serves as a useful illustration of the ridiculous lengths people will go to prove their point.
As for helmets, I've heard all the arguments not least the famous "it won't save you if you're hit by a bus". Wow, really Sherlock? I'm under no illusion that if a 20-tonne vehicle crushed my head, pelvis, legs or chest, there are zero miraculous life-saving properties to wearing a helmet. Rather I wear one for those times when it potentially can make a difference.
A couple of years ago my husband was involved in a cycling accident after his brakes locked out on gravel. Propelled over the handlebars, he landed in a nearby field with his bike helmet imbedded in a barbed wire fence. He walked away without a scratch on his head. The helmet was not so lucky. I'd love someone to prove his scalp would have fared quite so well without that protective layer between flesh and twisted metal.
Drivers have airbags, seatbelts and specially-designed crumple zones; motorcyclists must wear helmets by law. Yet, it always baffles me that the mere suggestion cyclists should also have some degree of protection - if only to shield them from the after effects of minor falls - is met with scorn and derision in some quarters.
I'm not saying helmets should be compulsory - I believe it is firmly a personal choice - but I'm fed up with having to continually defend my decision to wear one.
I take huge offence at the implied suggestion that because I wear a helmet and high-vis apparel I'm some kind of naive, village idiot who thinks they will pedal through the streets safely enveloped in a cloud of fairy dust. I'm well versed in assertive road positioning. What I choose to wear doesn't alter how I ride a bike. I simply favour a belt and braces approach.
The anti-helmet brigade like to claim they are simply trying to normalise the act of cycling and make it more appealing to the masses. Believe me, nothing makes an activity less universally attractive than the prospect of having to listen to someone bang-on about what you should or shouldn't be wearing. If someone wants to wear a helmet let them, if they don't, that equally is their decision. Mind your own beeswax. Live and let live.
Ditto high-visibility clothing. I've lost track of the number of people I've heard bleating on about studies proving it doesn't alter driver behaviour. That isn't under dispute. If someone is a selfish, dangerous road user, not even a cattle-prod to the nether regions is going to change that.
But it is worth noting that the often quoted University of Bath and Brunel University study, which found that high-vis vests and jackets made no difference to the space left by overtaking drivers, did not look at whether such devices made cyclists more visible at intersections or at night. The paper concentrated only on the use of high-vis clothing during daylight hours - a fact some campaigners are fond of overlooking.
Earlier this year, Boardman criticised government encouragement to wear helmets as "a big campaign to get people to wear body armour, by the people who should be stopping the shooting." I completely get where he's coming from. There is a whole host of thorny issues, not least that of woefully inadequate infrastructure and funding, which desperately need to be addressed.
But until the truce is signed - to further labour that analogy - I don't intend to lay down my defences. Scotland isn't Denmark or the Netherlands, no matter how much we may wish it is.
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