Perhaps it was tempting fate when, back in September, I mentioned how life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. (John Lennon famously said that, although other people less famously said it before him.) Well, it seems that life didn’t include cycling in its plans for us – not for the past several months, at least. And with… Read more »
You know what winter’s like for cycling – so many reasons not to do it. But days like today don’t offer any excuses. It was bright and mild. Here in Normandy we often get an oddly warm and sunny February, sandwiched between a baltic-cold January and a turbulent March. The sky was mostly clear and stunningly bright. I was glad… Read more »
In my experience, the first thing to freeze up on a cold day’s ride is your hands. And for anyone who has arthritis, as I do, keeping your hands warm is critical. I wear gloves a lot. The Optimum Nitebrite waterproof cycling gloves are part of a range of gear with an emphasis on high visibility. Indeed, one of the… Read more »
Taking a break from cycling can result in quite a shock when you get back in the saddle. For a variety of dull reasons, I haven’t ridden much lately. Then, just as I was ready to restart, we went on holiday. We took the bikes with us for our week in Brittany, knowing that the weather there is often surprisingly… Read more »
The day started very dull and with my head buried in work I hadn’t noticed it getting better. Until, that is, the More Significant Other announced, “I’m going for a ride.” I may have muttered something like, “It’s alright for some” – quietly, and only once she was well out of range – then got back to subbing copy about network vulnerabilities… Read more »
Winter has been something of a surprise. It’s been astonishingly rainy, but not that cold. The surprising bit, though, has been how little cycling I’ve done. My first cold in several years has been the main culprit, but also a general disinclination. Normandy can be grey. Lowering skies and low light levels persuade you that being out on the roads… Read more »
Enforced hiatus notwithstanding, cycling this autumn and winter has not so far been as difficult as I thought it would be. The weather’s been stupidly mild so the roads haven’t been icy, and my morning has fallen into a routine of get up, have breakfast, put lunch in the slow cooker, work/housework/etc till 11.00, then ride for an hour and… Read more »
Sometimes you look out at the sky and think, ‘nah, I’ll skip it today, it’s too grey’. As someone who has dedicated his life to the pursuit of idleness, I find this kind of argument highly persuasive. Today was an example of why I shouldn’t. We decided to ride one of our favourite sections of the Veloscénie voie verte – one… Read more »
Back when I used to do some flying, I’d look forward to winter in a perverse kind of way. Many pilots would think of the winter months as ‘out of season’. And, indeed, the low grey clouds would often make getting airborne impossible. But those days when you could fly were hard to match at any other time of the… Read more »
