I'm not normally one given to ranting without reason, but last month I flew off the handle and took my frustrations out in a strongly worded email to a journalist. The recipient in question was Richard Tomkins, who was kicking off an essay competition in the Financial Times with a diatribe aimed at cyclists.

I'm not sure why this particular article got to me the way it did, but having read it I fired off a fairly lengthy email countering a number of points in the article (including the ubiquitous 'road' tax - which coming from the Financial Times was slightly worrying) and, having got the anger out of my system, sat down to wait for the reply that I knew would never come.

Except it did. Short and sweet, Mr Tomkins told me, "You're right, it is a bit late and since, as you acknowledge, you're not even a reader, I don't feel under any obligation to reply. Suffice to say, you can nitpick as much as you like but the essential argument remains."

Heckles raised once more I found myself shouting my cause on the pages of 'anothercyclingforum' and was ready to fire off another email in Mr Tomkins direction when the spectre of 'green ink' popped into view.

This is what that all-seeing resource Wikipedia has to say about 'green ink': "In journalism, Green Ink is (humorously) supposedly the major identifying characteristic of written correspondence from self-aggrandising pedants, cranks, charlatans and eccentrics." It's probably just as well I hadn't invoked Godwin's Law by referring to motorists in the same breath as Nazis, that would only have added to my fulfilling of the stereotype which Mr Tomkins article actually hinted at.

You see, everyone knows that cyclists are argumentative, with feelings of superiority and smugness, and hopelessly defensive when challenged. In giving the reply that I did to the article had I just proved the point?