Every mountain bike ride doesn’t need to be a feast for the senses, reckons Antony.Sometimes it just needs to be a snack for the soul.

ANTONY DE HEVENINGHAM

My partner is generally a delight to be around, with one exception: she gets extremely grumpy if she doesn’t eat. I too have a reliable precursor of terrible moods: I often start feeling hacked off if I haven’t been riding for a while.

It doesn’t have to be an epic ride through snowcapped peaks, or a ‘progression session’ where I shatter the force field of fear around a particularly knobbly bit of trail. Although those types of rides make for great memories, in the short term they can be a mixed blessing as they are accompanied by a big plunge back to normality the next day. (I’d coin the term ‘radover’ to describe this, except it sounds like a small village in Dorset…) Sometimes just a short spin to the post office on the hack bike is enough to make me feel chirpy for the rest of the day, just as a round of beans on toast can get a hangry girlfriend back on an even keel.