This is for anyone who visits London on business, or any other city that has or is planning a bicycle hire scheme, and is about to embark on their maiden voyage. These tips should stop you from making all the mistakes I made yesterday lunchtime:

DO bring a spare top or T-shirt. Cycling, astonishingly, can make you sweaty – arriving back at work with your sweaty work shirt stuck to you, like cling film to a leg of lamb, is deeply unpleasant for all concerned.

DO keep deodorant at work – see above.

DO check the weather before you go out. Rain is bad. Especially when travelling at speed. It will make you even wetter than sweat glands alone can manage.

DO bring a raincoat – see above.

DON’T plan on visiting a bicycle shop at the end of your journey with a discount voucher for said bicycle shop in order to purchase a helmet, if you have forgotten to bring the voucher for said bicycle shop with you. It kind of renders the whole trip pointless.

DON’T plan on also dropping off dry cleaning en route, without first checking that the nice cheap dry cleaning shop that you once went to still exists. Cycling around on your maiden voyage, wet, with no helmet, is already unpleasant – doing so with (ironically wet and uncleaned) dry cleaning in a bag, is worse.

DO plan a route, including which “docking station” you will pick your bike up from, and which to drop it off at. Cycling blindly around seeing the sights is good if you’re a tourist - not if you’re rapidly eating into working hours.

DO stop and inform your boss, or client, whom you should currently be meeting, via mobile telecommunication to inform them that you will be late.

DO have your lunch before setting off. When arriving late to your meeting, wet, smelly, your shirt stuck to you like cling film, with wet dry cleaning in a plastic bag, it only makes matters worse if you promptly tuck into your lunch in front of them.

DON’T stop these tips from signing up to the scheme though; it’s great. Just as long as you’re not an idiot, like me.