I'm writing this without any clothes on. It's method journalism. I'm trying to get in tune with the new fad for naked cycling. Naked cyclist No 1 has been spotted bouncing along by the Thames between Putney and Twickenham. The police say they're keen to speak to him, but they're not as keen as I am, because I want to clear my name. That stretch of towpath is exactly where I ride every week. He's white and in his thirties, like me, and rumour has it he's on a really knackered bike, like me. You can see how my neighbours' suspicions arise, but I think I would remember if I had been pedalling past the boatyards in the altogether.
Naked cyclists Nos 2 and 3 were let off with a warning last month in New Zealand by a police officer named Cathy Duder. The pair of young men were cycling round the seaside resort of Coromandel. The warning wasn't for having their tackle hanging out; it was because "neither appeared to have a helmet". You can think it, but don't say it.
I'm confused about the practicalities of all this. I mean, what goes where? I've looked at a lot of saddles in my time, and none seems to have the right design. Saddles are built for people who've had all their untidy bits gathered up and smoothed over with Lycra. If you were going to use one naked, you'd have to have a down-there like an Action Man doll.
Leaving aside the how, there's the bigger question: why? It is a common assumption that people do this sort of thing for some obscure and shameful physical thrill, but I'm not so sure. Especially with Towpath Man. I know every pothole along that route, and I can tell you, your tastes would have to be pretty extreme. A thrash along the Barnes to Hammersmith stretch and you can put aside any thoughts of fatherhood.
No, I think this is something subtler. It's all a protest against the tyranny of cycling fashion. I don't know what it's like around your way, but pull up at any set of lights in southwest London wearing the wrong kit - baggy shorts, old fleece and tatty anorak, say - and you can feel the derision burning into you like a laser. Perhaps Towpath Man and the Coromandel Two didn't see why they should spend £400 on Gore-tex, Kevlar and Teflon-coated Lycra just to take a waterside spin, and it was their way of making a point: beneath their Campagnolo and Northwave, all cyclists are naked.
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If so, good luck to them. In this weather Towpath Man is going to need it. I got back from a ride in the sleet an hour ago, and my ears are still numb. If he's out there now, he probably does look like Action Man after all.