Don't panic, that's my advice. If it's too wet to ride, skip a day or two, there's still plenty of time left this season. Assuming you ride for fun rather than wages, why go out in the rain when you don't have to?

This recent bad weather is dire enough to blunt the enthusiasm of even the most hardened rider. Eventually you will simply run out of dry clothes and if you commute, there are only so many times you want to ride home in wet shorts.

Motivation becomes increasingly difficult to find and the danger is that if bike riding becomes too much of a negative experience, it's all too easy to pack things in.

Let's keep things in perspective. Fortunately for us it doesn't normally rain quite this much - this is set to be the wettest April since records begun almost 250 years ago. It's been a bleak three of four weeks but the season still has some six months to run.

In this week's issue of Cycling Weekly our expanded sportive section has details of all the forthcoming events in May, and there's plenty to enter. We also have news of the Etape Pennines, the first closed-road sportive in England, a tough 78-mile loop around County Durham on October 7 which still has 1,000 spaces left.

Robert Garbutt is editor of Cycling Weekly magazine