There is a mysterious affinity between cafes, coffee and cycling. And, if truth be told, cake.
Not so mysterious perhaps: a piece of cake never tasted better than when you felt you'd earned the treat and were just replacing calories already burned off back up the road. And coffee, of course, contains one of the few performance-enhancing drugs it's perfectly legal to take: caffeine.
Cyclists have long congregated at cafes – before and after a ride, certainly; but the "cafe stop" is an integral part of any Sunday club runs for many recreational and sporting cyclists.
These new cyclists' cafes are hybrid venues: more than just a coffee shop, they're a meeting room and hub for rides and riders, a workshop in some cases, a gallery even, and a place to chill and watch the pro peloton on a large, flat-screen TV. You can pretty much guarantee that the coffee will be good: it has to be Italian and it will be prepared with the same obsessive attention to detail that a Tour mechanic would lavish on the leader's bike.
It seems to me a sign of the maturity of our cycling culture, and its confidence, that it can sustain this type of business: it's not just about commerce and retail space any more, it's about the culture we've built around cycling and sharing our love of the bike.
And the cake.