Ironically, one of Bradford's biggest assets is a handicap when it comes to encouraging people to take up pedal power. The hills on which the suburbs are built offer superb views across the bowl of the city centre. But they also provide a huge challenge to those trying to replace the car or the bus with the bicycle: just about every journey involves a steep gradient.

So to many Bradford might seem an unlikely candidate for the title of "cycling demonstration city" - a designation which could see it receiving a slice of the £140 million of funding the organisation Cycling England has available to invest in schemes designed to tackle obesity and get more children to cycle.

One of the aims of the scheme is to get people fit. But some would argue that to take up cycling in Bradford you need to be fit already. And it's true that adults taking up that means of transport would probably find it difficult, at least initially.

Yet there are some reasonably level routes around the district, particularly those developed by Sustrans and involving disused railway lines. They are a good starting point. And there is a big emphasis in the scheme on "catching them young" - encouraging ten-year-olds into training and building safe links to schools from the National Cycle Network.

Money for Bradford could be used for that, and to develop new routes away from main roads to replace what are currently often merely token cycle lanes alongside heavy traffic. It might be an uphill struggle, but the idea is nowhere near as daft as it seems at first.