I DON’T know what my old mum would have thought of it all.

When I was a lad she sat me down on her knee and told me to avoid men who shave their legs, but there comes a time in your life when you have to make up your own mind. Besides, times change.

So I confess that on the last couple of Sundays, I have been hanging around with a bunch of blokes who not only shave their legs, but also like to squeeze into tight-fitting clothes that sometimes leave very little to the imagination, have funny heels on their shoes and even wear tights.

Thankfully, they also all ride bikes, which makes all that stuff OK.

Yes, after cycling almost entirely on my own up until now, I’ve joined a club made up of a group of people who go riding around the area together on Sunday mornings, just for kicks.

In fact, having gone on the inaugural ride of this brand new club, called the Recycles Road Cycling Club (because it is run out of the Recycles bike shop in Princes Street), I can claim to be one its founding members (find us on Facebook).

If you see us out and about, I am easy to spot because, at the moment, I am the only one not riding an expensive bike nor wearing all that kinky cycling gear, although the plan is to expand the club to include more people like me, who could never be mistaken for contenders for the Tour de France.

Having been a fan of watching road racing cycling for years, the chance to find out what it is like to ride in a group is part of the appeal.

Even on a chilly morning on the other side of Cricklade, it is easy to pretend you are riding in the peloton, the name they give the huge bunch of riders racing in Le Tour.

It’s also interesting to discover how much safer it feels to be riding in a group instead of solo, and learn about the etiquette and camaraderie of pedalling in a pack of (so far) a dozen.

I was surprised to find the whole group stopped and waited when somebody got a puncture even though we were close to the half-way stop, and when they are on the move, the riders at the head of the group kindly point out, to the riders behind, any upcoming obstacles in the road that don’t matter to motorists but do to cyclists, such as badly fitting drain covers and, even worse, horse manure.

The half-way stop was the highlight for me because it was at a cafe in Ashton Keynes, where I enjoyed a sausage sandwich while the others talked about things I know nothing about, such as spinning, sprockets and how to mend a puncture if you don’t have a bowl of water about your person to dip your inner tube in.

The cafe is also a good place to be if you are feeling like you are a bit too old for cycling compared with the youngsters you see whizzing around on their fancy racing bikes.

It is such a magnet for cyclists at the weekend that the proprietors provide special stands for parking all the bikes, and when their owners take off their helmets, many show themselves to be older than you would expect.

It’s encouraging and comforting, and even quite inspiring, to find that if they have any hair on their heads at all, it is often the same colour as mine, which is grey.

Although we’ll never know the colour of the hair on their legs.