Despite LA’s all-year-round fair weather my morning bike commute is perky enough to snap fingers. It’s not the ride down to the ocean that does it, nor keeping pace with the school-run traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway. No, the cold really kicks in once you turn onto Topanga Canyon Road and start the slow steady climb through pockets of star-kissed woodland air, that is being elbowed down to the ocean by a impatient San Fernando Valley tail wind.

As any cyclist worth their salty brow will tell you the climbs are more fun than the descents – its where your legs and lungs work in harmony or you suffer the consequences, and for this commuter at least the steady ascent provides 45 minutes of interrupted thinking time.

Thinking leads to change and change is good.

Besides the alternative just doesn’t cut it.