SO our bike hire scheme has finally started.

About time you might say. And you’d be right. But from Argus reporter Amir Razavi’s first-hand account and riders’ comments on pages two and three today, it looks like it;s been worth the wait.

We may be late getting to the party but the bikes themselves seem to be better than many other schemes.

The editor of this newspaper tried to hire one in Nice in the South of France a year ago and his payment was rejected so many times he had to give up.

Hopefully our scheme is the best one out there with the best bikes and one of the best booking systems.

Job done you might say.

Wrong.

Because for all the good news about more people taking up cycling, improving our air quality and their health, one problem persists.

As Amir alluded to in his account, some of our roads are just not conducive to cycling.

Have you tried cycling up London Road recently? When Amir was on the Old Steine he thought he was rumbling down a rocky mountain.

So were are on a journey with a little way to go.

We have the bikes. We have the cyclists. But the roads are still a bit of a mess.

Many of us moan about cycle lanes but most cyclists are also drivers and if they weren’t in our way on two wheels then they would be in our way on four.

Brighton and Hove has enough hills to put many of us off cycling and all the potholes do a good job with the rest so we must rectify that problem so we can take the next step.