DR Dawn Harper is a leading media medic best known for her work on Channel 4’s award winning ‘Embarrassing Bodies’ & ‘Born Naughty?’. She is a resident doctor on ITV’s This Morning and LBC Radio. She also has her own YouTube Channel. Her latest book Dr Dawn’s Guide to Sexual Health is out later this month and is available to pre-order from Amazon.

The Northern Echo:

Why do you cycle?

I was run over in a car chase in 2002 and shattered my left knee. It took months of rehab to finally be able to flex my injured knee enough to manage a complete revolution on a static bicycle in the physio gym. I was determined to get back to fitness so as soon as I could manage this I started going out on my bike around the Cotswold lanes and found that it was something I really enjoyed. Over the years I have joined gyms and started going regularly in January only to find I had fallen by the wayside by March. It took this injury for me to realise that I don't actually like the gym! Put me on a bike in a gym and I am clock watching within quarter of an hour but I will happily cycle for a couple of hours or more in the countryside. I guess every cloud has a silver lining. I may never have found this enjoyment if I hadn't been run over.

What do you ride?

When I started cycling I had a hybrid bike but as I started doing longer routes and was training for some long distance charity rides I swapped to a road bike. I used to do a lot of horse riding and it felt like swapping my happy hacker for a racehorse! I now have a made to measure Italian road bike from Viner. It was made for me for my first London to Paris cycle and after the ride the company offered to sell it to me for £900. I remember all my non-cycling friends telling me I was crazy to even consider spending that kind of money on a bicycle and all my cycling friends telling me I was crazy if I didn't snatch at the offer! In the end I bought it and it is probably one of my best purchases ever. I have certainly had real value for money from it.

Tell me about your favourite route?

I am lucky to live in the Cotswolds where there are some beautiful routes along pretty much empty lanes so I am rather spoiled for choice. One of my favourite routes is my basic training run, which I try to do several times a week. It's a 15-mile loop through Cotswold villages, including a couple of good hills to make me feel I have done some exercise and some beautiful scenery.

Tell me about your best cycling memory?

I guess that has to be the first time we cycled to Paris - 600 cyclists cycled down the Champs Elysees to arrive at the Eiffel Tower. It was a real "hair on the back of your neck moment" and the following day we sat in the sun and watched the professionals screech past on the Tour de France. It made us really appreciate just how fit they are!

What do you consider your most important piece of cycling equipment?

You probably expect me to say my cycle helmet and of course that is vital, but it's my gloves that I appreciate most when I'm out cycling. I really feel the cold so they are definitely my favourite piece of kit.

If you could cycle anywhere where would that be?

I wanted to cycle 2016 miles around the 2012 Paralympic heritage sites here in the UK on the run up to the 2016 games. I thought it would be fun to get athletes, celebrities and anyone who wanted to be part of it really to join me for various legs of the journey, which would take in all the 110 golden postboxes. I thought we could film at centres doing amazing things for disabled people and raise money for the British Paralympic Association. Sadly it didn't come off this time but there is still 2020...!