Saturday 2 February 2013

Snow Pt2; Mleh!

Definitely a week of two half's. The superb wintery riding conditions we had at the beginning of the week had gone leaving behind slush, ice, mud and broken roads.
I left off Wednesday night, topping off a great snowy ride with a crash on the icy tarmac. So Thursday was a case of two hours on the turbos trying to iron out the lumps and bruises. That session turned out to be a good one, and I got carried away tapping out a tempo to Jools Hollands friends album. Feeling suitably un lumpy and soreness free? I decided to set the alarm for a Friday morning road ride.
I did the usual 'no looking out of the window' routine, scoffed my porridge and jumped onto my prepared the night before bike. The weather was looking friendly and the roads seemed okay, but as soon as I hit the lanes it became very obvious that they weren't okay. The usual side roads were glazed and treacherous. I carried on for a bit, but soon got fed up trying to work out a route that would be safe, so I turned for home and called it a day.
Saturday did look better so I set off to meet the guys for Saturday morning team training. Only four of the sixteen man team showed up. So Ian. Stuart K, Andy and myself  set off at tempo for a 45/50 mile loop. Sadly Saturdays conditions were proving to be no better than the day before. Turning  off the main B roads just after Swanbourne it became apparent that the ice was still prevalent when your back wheel started to slide round and stare at you in the face! We gingerly turned about and set off for the café using the busier roads and took advantage of the better conditions to get a chaingang going. The café was full of a few local racers enjoying the last months of steady time.
Coffee done we set off for home, well myself and Andy did. Ian and Stu followed us back but then took off for an extra hours riding.
Sunday was an epic fail, after waking up on the alarm I felt full of cold. So rather than risk weeks of missed riding from aggravating a simple cold I bailed out and went back to bed. That turned out to be a wise move as I was back training and feeling fine by Wednesday.
All in all a fairly good week, if a bit short on actual riding.

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