Sir Bradley Wiggins’ guide to winter cycling

Sir Bradley Wiggins’ stint as guest editor of Radio 4’s Today programme has seen him providing a series of winter riding tips. The cyclist also interviewed Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and received retirement advice from Gary Lineker.

Corbyn is a keen cyclist, but rejected parallels between competitive cycling and politics. “In sport, yes you're in it to take part, but the reality is you are in it to win. Politics is different in the sense I am not that competitive a person in that sense. I am much more a community co-operative kind of person.”

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Corbyn took his aluminium-framed Raleigh bike along to meet Wiggins, who asked whether it was the "famous Chairman Mao bicycle" one newspaper said he had been riding. “Whoever wrote it was a Chairman Mao bicycle should be sent away for re-education," responded the Labour leader.

"It's a lived in bike. I’ve got a carrier at the back so I can put my panniers on. Maybe I should go into Parliament in my Lycra,” he mused.

The two men took refuge in a café to complete the interview and Corbyn is thought to have mocked Wiggins for his fear of catching a cold in bad weather.

Elsewhere in the show, Wiggins provided some explanation for this behaviour while providing his guide to winter cycling. Talking about longer rides, he said:

“You have to be flexible and you have to adjust to the weather. So you might delay it a day and do it tomorrow if it's going to be dry – take the sensible option and leave today. If you pushed on and tried to persist with it and say 'No, today's the day I've got to do that' and you went and did four, five, six hours, got really cold, ended up getting a cold or illness, that sets you back two or three weeks."

He did however say that you can never really get too cold during a shorter commute and said it was good to keep that in mind. He also suggested leaving ‘clean duds’ at work to minimise the impact of the worst weather – “some socks and things like that, just makes it a hell of a lot easier for you."

Other advice included investing in waterproofs and ensuring you can be seen by using lights and wearing clothing that stands out.

Other segments on the programme included an interview Gary Lineker to talk about retiring from sport and meeting a teenage cyclist he inspired to ride. Wiggins also took his tailor, Saville Row's Mark Powell, to Sir Paul Smith's office, to discuss the state of the great British suit.