"I always feel better for going for a ride"

Tim McKenna lives on a houseboat, is a keen cyclist and takes a great photograph. He also happens to have bipolar disorder.

Like a lot of people, I first "met" Tim on Twitter a few weeks ago, when, at a particularly low ebb, he chose to put his suicidal feelings into words. The reaction was immediate and heartwarming: hundreds of complete strangers reaching out with kind comments and offers of advice, support and a listening ear - all on a platform much more often associated with mean-spirited sniping than with basic human decency, and with causing mental health issues than with ameliorating them.

That response helped Tim to seek help and now, out of hospital and in better health, he's written a frank and beautifully worded piece for Sporting Heads chronicling his own personal battle with mental illness and how his passion for cycling, which has taken him around the globe, has been crucial in helping him to win that battle.

He admits that "staying on top of my mental health is still a work in progress", but he now has another work in progress too: a book about his personal struggles with bipolar and one of his annual cycling trips, his 2016 attempt to ride around the British coast - "part mental health memoir, part travelogue".

Best wishes with both that and the day-to-day, Tim.