Tourists, like the students whose colleges they come to admire, can be a right nuisance. Without the students, Oxford would probably be an irrelevant river crossing with all the urban pizzazz of Swinford. And students at least seem to get the bicycle bug. Not so tourists – yet.

Tourists come in all shapes and sizes. Perhaps the worst are the language students who trail around in long lines, like demented zombies who have ransacked a Benetton outlet. Gaggles of garrulous Latin girls and boys will block your path through the city centre for longer than the Frideswide Square traffic lights.

Silent but deadlier are the well-fed offspring of the Pilgrim Fathers. Just as the number 5 bus gets level with you outbound over Magdalen Bridge, a huge white thigh will thud like a pterodactyl stump into the cycle lane. It’s not their fault that the pavements were built by and for their slighter medieval forebears. Several sandals (and a few socks) have returned to the States with the unmistakable imprint of my front tyre like a go-faster stripe across the toe.

A little better are the tourists who follow their guides on itineraries around Broad Street, and most respond politely to the tinkle of a bicycle bell.

Occasionally, of course, that quick step backwards to get a better angle on the Bridge of Sighs sends tourist and local sprawling in a tangle of Canon and Cannondale.

For cyclists, the worst tourists are those in vehicles, whether dithering along High Street in a hired Ford Focus or sitting aboard the open-top sightseeing buses. How many other cyclists are tempted, like me, to hit the ‘Engine Stop’ button on the back of what smell like the filthiest diesels in the Thames Valley?

While some guy is waiting for a licence to operate horse-drawn tourist carriages in the city centre, I am glad to report that Bainton Bikes has just launched the first really worthwhile tours of the city: by bike.

I joined them on the inaugural ride last week. The tours last about two-and-a-half hours and start outside Balliol College in Broad Street.

The price of £20–25 includes a drink at the Trout Inn as well as bike hire. Owner Kevin Moreland can deliver bikes to any destination in the city using a very cool bike-towed trailer that carries four bikes at a time. They have a deal with First Great Western to promote the tours – the train companies would rather customers hire bikes here than bring them on the train, and customers can even pick their tour bikes up at Oxford station.

The charming and knowledgeable guide is Ellie – also a Walton Street Cycles mechanic. Her tour stops 11 times to take in martyrs burned at the stake and the secrets of John Radcliffe (of Camera and hospital fame), before heading north to ride past OUP and out across Port Meadow to the Trout.

This countryside part is what makes the tour so worthwhile for tourists: they get to see the Oxford that we all know and love, and in style, not cooped up on a bus.

The tour returns via the canal at Wolvercote, then heads off to take in the houses of some of Oxford’s great and good. I knew that Tolkien was buried in Wolvercote Cemetery but had never seen his house in Northmoor Road (look out for the blue plaque).

Tourists glide south past the Victorian mansions of Norham Gardens and end up at the Sheldonian, where Kevin loads the tour bikes back onto his trailer.

It was high time tourists had a better choice than Shanks’s pony or that stinky sightseeing bus. The Bainton Bikes tours really are a breath of fresh air.