Spare a sympathetic thought for me this morning, please. If all has gone according to plan, I'm awkwardly straddling a new Trek racing bike surrounded by 35,000 athletic cyclists preparing to race 109km around South Africa's Table Mountain. The race should be stunning as it ducks and bobs through some of the world's most beautiful wine regions - Constantia, Franschhoek and Stellenbosch - that is if you dare glance up.
It seems wherever there's a wine region, there's a cycling tour: Sonoma, Napa, Tasmania, Victoria, Burgundy and Alsace to name a few. Perhaps vintners prefer to keep visitors wobbling on a pair of wheels instead of wobbling behind the wheel.
Bordeaux is easy to cycle through because most of the famed 'left-bank' vineyards are as flat as a pancake, if a touch dull. Thrill seekers might prefer the narrow roads threaded through Bordeaux's hillier but more picturesque right-bank regions, Pomerol and medieval Saint-Emilion.
Tucked in the foothills of the Dolomite Mountains just north of Venice is Treviso, the home of Italy's favourite bubbly, prosecco. Here, cyclists pedal along rustic, well-kept stradines (small canal-lined roads) through ancient villages interspersed with olive trees, cornfields and terraced vineyards. The only way to beat the region's creamy polenta and rich risotto excesses is to burn through the Strada del Vino Prosecco (Prosecco Wine Route), a popular 45km itinerary that runs from the castle-clad town of Conegliano to Valdobbiadene, along the Piave River. Van Gogh Tours (
www.vangoghtours.com) and Backroads (
www.backroads.com) offer fully supported multi-day cycling tours throughout Veneto.
For expansive wind-swept fields and rolling plains of wildflowers mixed with calf-wrenching climbs ask Backroads to guide your bike through Alentejo, Portugal.
Laggards might prefer spinning their wheels on New Zealand's Marlborough Wine Trail, a flat, easily navigable 24km ride with broad roads and light traffic leading past Grove Mill, Mud House, Cloudy Bay and about 30 other wineries. Wine Tours by Bike (
www.winetoursbybike.co.nz) offers rentals and guided tours. Across the Cook Strait, On Yer Bike Winery Tours (
www.onyerbikehb.co.nz) takes cyclists through North Island's Hawke's Bay, one of New Zealand's oldest, warmest and driest wine regions. Fitness masochists might prefer a fully supported nine-day tour (
www.trektravel.com) through South Island's hilly Central Otago region, which produces some of the finest pinot noir.