Mr Lee (Letters, June 19) raised a smile by saying if cyclists paid towards the "damage" they do, there would be fewer around on London-to-Brighton day.

I sympathise with him about the jams - but from a different angle to his.

Most returning London-to-Brighton cyclists used to be hoovered up by British Rail.

They caused much less road traffic than today. If the event had been managed then as well as it is now, it would have gone off very smoothly.

Tragically, the trains let down the riders at least twice in the Nineties.

One year, there was a strike and lorries and coaches were substituted at short notice. Another time, the service simply stopped mid-afternoon and the queues of waiting cyclists around the station were unbelievable.

These failures boosted the trend to be collected near the finish. This involves thousands of vans, cars, minibuses and lorries.

These greatly aggravate the jams. Bikes, on their own, are highly-efficient users of road space.

Bikes also do virtually no damage to roads. One-tonne cars do some damage and 40-tonne lorries do a stunning amount.

A bike and rider, at 100 kilos, is almost undetectable.

This is because each time the axle weight of the vehicle. doubles, its impact far more than doubles.

Someone much better at maths than me calculated that the "damage ratio" carto-bike is 10,000-to-one.

So, if cars pay £100 a year, bikes should pay 1p. I could live with that.

-Les Robinson, Cycling Support Services, PO BOX 3139, Brighton