Monthly Archives: Feb 2018

Steal softly through sunshine…

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+1°C, cold stiff wind from East. Sunny and snow on ground.

I rode Mustang with MapMyRide+! Distance: 22.24km, time: 01:23:28, pace: 3:45min/km, speed: 15.99km/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/2735446345

Steal softly through sunshine, steal softly through snow.
~Captain Beefheart.

We should aim to do things never tried before. This afternoon, I cycled in snow for the first time in half a century. It’s the black ice that scares me most but today’s snowfall is still quite powdery. It’s only as slippery as soft mud, but cleaner.

I’m not very good at this yet, I’m not brilliant in mud either. The problem for me is pushing away the fear of crashing. It’s good to remind yourself to relax arms and your grip. Push your shoulders down so your movement over uneven ground is fluid and sooth. However, it certainly was fun. The times I stopped, the beauty of this weather was obvious. That deep cobalt sky filled shadows which set against the golden sun. There were puddles of ice crusted puddles in fields, and puddles of cobalt in any dip in the clean white snow.

Wind chill is fierce, cold eats through your clothes and your nostrils. Best to keep the ride short. A long outing in this takes a long recovery to warn back up after. At least the sun has warmth, especially in wind shadows.

Appreciation.

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4°C dry and sunny.

Drive south to collect stuff for my new house. The wait should be over early next month.

Music has meaning again. During the ugliest most stressful stage in my last job, I would listen to music. But it had lost something. I no longer got the shivers. My senses were dulled so much by the accumulated tiredness.

Anyway, I drove home with the iPod set on shuffle. It seemed to be in a good mood. It played interesting tracks with hardly any need to skip any. Even the difficult types of music showed its magic. Fred Frith came up a good few times as well as Zena Parkins.

I have only bought a few discs in the last 12 months but the desire is coming back. Hurry along the time I can set up my stereo.

Arctic Blast.

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+1 to +5°C, sharp ESE wind. Dry with bright blue sky.

I rode Mustang with MapMyRide+! Distance: 80.44km, time: 03:53:29, pace: 2:54min/km, speed: 20.67km/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/2729584762

In today’s Daily Mirror, the subheadline is ‘Temperatures colder than the Arctic’. What a stupid, blatant lie. They’ve printed that one before. It’s only a few degrees below in the UK.

I didn’t expect the photo to come out so badly. The lens must have steamed up. This is taken at CafeVelo which is by two small lakes. A very nice cyclist cafe, a good replacement for The Beehive by Rosliston.

By the time I got there, about 10, most of the ice had gone but the wind picked up. My feet and fingertips were cold. Actually, it felt as though there were pebbles inside my shoes. A cafe stop was essential to warm up.

The next leg, I could enjoy a tailwind and enjoy the scenery. The light is wonderful today and the roads, quiet.

Anyway, I set off for an early one. What spectacular weather, the light was sharp which cart deep incised shadows. All was tinged with blue from the cloudless sky.

Angry in an Audi.

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After snow, 2°C, clear with moderate N breeze.

I rode Mustang with MapMyRide+! Distance: 32.50km, time: 01:37:00, pace: 2:59min/km, speed: 20.10km/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/2698143748

A short outing after the snow finished. None of it stuck anyway. The first mile goes north along an escarpment but narrows before the 40m descent. At that point, I had 4 cars behind so I pulled into a driveway to let them through. Oddly, the fourth car didn’t pass, it stopped. I waved him through. The other cars had stopped in front too. Then when it cleared, the Audi moved forward with a widow lowered. He shouted at me, “if you used your eyes, you’d see that car instead of blocking the road”

‘Blocking the road‘? I was in a driveway to let traffic through!

‘Using (my) eyes’? I saw the 4 cars, and saw the open driveway. What I didn’t see was the car coming up the hill because 3 cars were blocking the view.

I’m sorry, Audi driver that you’re having a bad day, but you have no right to take it out on me.

There I was, trying to be cooperative and considerate. Should I have continued with 4 cars behind me on that single track road since I had every legal right to?

At test this kind of thing doesn’t happen very often, perhaps once every three years.

Long Winter Sun.

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2C, light NE breeze and clear sky. Dry.

I rode the Paddy Wagon with MapMyRide+! Distance: 71.84km, time: 03:11:01, pace: 2:40min/km, speed: 22.57km/h.
http://mapmyride.com/workout/2694835531

A day of colour. Bright sun cast long shadows, especially towards 5pm, sunset. A copper orange glow illuminated the cloud’s undersides revealing textures and contours that are never otherwise visible. These are photogenic conditions and indeed, I took more shots than usual. An exquisite day, the peaks in Cumbria were visible, and they were capped with snow.