"When I get in from a ride I now have to carry out an electronic device charging audit"

The Doc weighs up the mixed blessing of cycling gadgets

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I was out for a ride recently with my friend Bernard. As happens rather frequently these days, my computer ran out of battery. It does not believe in giving me much notice of this - it flashes up a message, counts to 10 in its head, and dies. It's old and grouchy and it finds it hard to summon much energy these days. In many respects it and Bernard are fellow travellers.

I don’t think I did anything to give it away, but my friend noticed the screen had gone blank.

He’s quite hostile to a lot of modern technology. Basically, he objects to anything that needs a battery, because cycling is about honest physical work.

There’s an element of hypocrisy — he'll use a TV remote control, and if you tried to interest him in the authenticity of our parents’ generation, where everyone either got up to change the channel or organised their family so that there was an eternal supply of seven-year-olds to do it for them, he’d think you were an idiot.