Peter Rhodes on rising crime, cold old winters and a slowdown in cycling

'Twas ever thus. The history of cycling is boom and bust. At its peaks, cycling has been seen as fashionable, friendly, planet-saving and revolutionary. In its troughs bikes have been viewed as slow, cold, dangerous thief-magnets. Today cycling is taking a bit of a knock, tomorrow it will surely recover. That's the thing about bikes. They're cyclical.