APPEARANCES can be deceptive.

You wouldn’t think it to look at my grey hair, but I am well known around these parts for seeking out extreme sports. I’ve considered swimming with sharks, wrestling with crocodiles and taming lions, but, frankly, they just seem so mild.

Climbing up Everest? Skydiving off towers? Niagara in a barrel? Let’s face it: those things are for pussycats.

So imagine my delight when I discovered something really dangerous that you can do without even leaving Swindon. And the other day I got to try it: cycling down Rodbourne Road, under the bridge, and up the other side.

You should give it a go. It’s so much more exhilarating than bungee jumping. And cheaper. Perhaps you could train yourself up for it with a game of chicken on the railway line.

Seriously: I can’t think of a scarier road for cyclists in the whole of Swindon.

And I only did it when it was relatively quiet. Daredevil cyclists who choose this route (instead of the two-mile detour I usually choose) tell me the ultimate adrenalin rush comes when an impatient motorist squeezes past you in the dip, leaving two inches between their wing mirrors and your skull. Although it is one of the narrowest roads in town, some drivers just can’t wait.

Yet even old timers like me work up a decent speed because of the slope down, so we are only talking about a wait of a few seconds behind a bike.

But if you want to find out how it feels to be overtaken in a confined space, you will have to hurry because they will shortly be closing the road while they take down a bridge.

You might think this would provide the perfect opportunity to have a good think about cyclists’ safety and make this stretch of road safer.

So did a friend of mine, a fellow cyclist who can hardly avoid the road because he lives in Rodbourne.

He’s quite keen to see his children grow up and worried about other people being squished between the wall and a lorry, but he can be a bit of a killjoy when it comes to crazy thrillseekers.

So he suggested Swindon Borough Council might consider painting solid white lines and putting up ‘No overtaking’ signs while the road is closed, so motorists can be reminded of the danger when it reopens.

It’s worth a try, but they seem to have rejected his idea. The message came back to him from Council officers that cyclists should “allow themselves to be overtaken” on this section of the road, but they didn’t say how that is possible.

According to my copy of the Highway Code (rule 163, to be precise) motorists overtaking cyclists, motorcyclists or horses should give “at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car”.

So to safely overtake on such a narrow section you would have to swerve right out on to the other side of the road, which, given the layout and the restricted views there, cannot possibly be safe.

In other words: surely solid white lines should have been painted there, all along.

I can’t help thinking, once again, that our council needs to learn to listen to people who might have a different view and might know better.

So if any of them would like to see it from a cyclist’s perspective, I would gladly lend them my bike, but they would have to bring their own change of underwear.

If they are brave enough to take up my offer, they could leave me a message.

I’ll be back as soon as I’ve finished firing myself out of a cannon.