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Well, this column seems to be turning out to be like one of those chairs you get in old pubs - everyone who takes it on gets pregnant!

My predecessor, Harriet Waters, had a baby recently and now I'm expecting again. Maybe my fellow writer, James Styring, is next in line!

Before having any children, I used to think people just gave up cycling on becoming pregnant - after all, you'd think that the huge bump must wobble the bike no end and make it dangerous to ride. However, apart from a couple of weeks early on, when cycling went out the window in favour of groaning with sickness and thinking I was dying on the sofa, I found it pretty easy just to carry on.

Of course, you do feel tired quickly, and so I've had to give up one of my favourite games - racing off the lights.

I now feel really frustrated as I see the other cyclists battling it out for the number one spot before they peel off round the roundabout at The Plain for example.

The real problem with being pregnant and cycling for me is being forgetful, and this is incredibly frustrating. It's not just cycling down the road, then realising you can't remember where you're heading, turning up to meetings and finding out they were last week, or simply forgetting to lock your bike.

My worst moment was coming out of my house in the morning recently to find my bike gone.

My bike's old - "we've been through a lot" as they say - and to find it apparently nicked from outside my house brought tears to my eyes.

I was in a rush to get my son to nursery so we walked down the road, only to have him then point out that my bike was still attached to the railings outside his nursery - where I'd left it the morning before. Oops!

When it comes to pregnancy, there are some women who will tell you they were cycling to work until one week before the birth.

In fact, if you go to your local family centre and sit in a group of women, it can be like a Monty Python sketch, starting with "I cycled four miles one week before I gave birth", then "That's nothing, I cycled up Headington Hill every day till I gave birth" till you get to "well, I cycled from Land's End to John O'Groats in my last trimester (three months) and then cycled to hospital to the labour suite".

The temptation to copy this effort is great, but I think I might save my energy for giving birth by doing the cycling I need, then trying to think of something delicious to crave.

More seriously, of course, the danger from cars remains and you are all too conscious of carrying another person within you.

When I used to have a baby seat on the back of my bike, I would generally feel that cars gave me extra room and treated me with more respect as a cyclist.

So I can only suggest to other pregnant women that a large sign on your back with Baby Inside' is visibly displayed to help fend off those car drivers whose IQ matches their shoe size.

4:34pm Monday 3rd March 2008

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