Regular readers of this column will be familiar with my promoting an idea called a ‘Paceometer’ (pictured). Rather than presenting speed in, say, miles per hour (distance/time), it presents speed the other way round, in minutes per ten miles (time/distance).

Created by the cognitive scientists Eyal Peer and Eyal Gamliel, the Paceometer shows something which is mathematically trivial but completely non-intuitive. Quite simply, the faster you are going already, the less time you save by going 10mph faster still. Accelerate from 20-30mph and you save ten minutes on a ten-mile journey. Accelerate from 70-80mph and you save just over a minute.

Once you have seen a Paceometer, you will drive in a completely different way. Formula 1 drivers have learned the distinction intuitively: ‘It isn’t how fast you go, it’s how little you slow down.’

It was the Paceometer which finally revealed to me why the bicycle was........

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