Little did I know how big an impact getting my first bicycle would have on my life. Arguably only a fraction smaller than getting my first LEGO set (I work for LEGO now) so Freud was right, what happens in our childhood makes all the difference - but in my opinion for the better, not for the worse as he frequently argued.

Mine was blue and had red balloon tyres (need to get my mum to dig out a picture so I can post it and amuse you all) and it was the beginning of a life-long love of the wind in my hair, the sensation of flying when going down a hill, the feeling of liberation when setting off, the notion of freedom to go wherever your legs could carry you and a sense of cockiness built on a sound knowledge of how fast you are, but hoping it will be fast enough to beat the kid you are trying to show off to.

Oh how very human, but then that’s us - this funny race that still can’t agree with itself about living in peace with one another, yet has conquered space and the moon, proving that almost no goal is big enough or impossible enough. If we set our minds on that versus annihilating one another, great things can be achieved.

Watching the Olympics still makes me think of the purity of what people are trying to achieve, (and I’m not thinking drugs now!) trying to win over themselves and one another in a sporting discipline they have devoted their lives to. Amazing things happen, records are broken but the rules of the sports remain the same. Whereas out there in the real world rules are frequently broken, redefined or taken away altogether to create playing fields that are at best skewed and sometimes just impossible to win in unless you have an unfair advantage.

Bradley Wiggins, Age 2

And here is Bradley Wiggins, double Olympic gold medallist, at the age of 2 with his Christmas present, a bike that no doubt became his best toy ever. Seeing this made me smile, because I think deep down we all spend our lives trying to become the children we once were, when the world was new and exciting, we were full of hopes and dreams and we also thought nothing could stop us from making our dreams come true.