The sun will, I hope, be warming both my back and the asphalt beneath my wheels as I whirr almost silently on hard rubber between hedgerows. Thanks to my gear, the lessons I've learnt, and the thousands of miles in my still hairy legs, the pleasure I first sensed on that Raleigh clunker will have been infinitely magnified. Because, beyond the loss of dignity, the vanity, the snobbery, and the fetishisation of suffering, road cycling is about pure joy..

The sports retail market is worth about $10billion, with more than $3billion of that coming from the CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN , according to Licensing Letter, a New York research and consulting newsletter. Men's products still dominate the total sale figure because of high end products like official game suits. But now one fourth of the CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN products available cater to women.

It is one of the great joys of Rowling's life. She has a grateful but still uneasy relationship with the money and the fame: "I feel like I c