No wonder I’m tired. Okay, you Audax muppets might laugh but I’ve done 330k this week and that’s with New Year’s Day off! I haven’t had mileage like that since July or maybe August.

Today’s ride was cold. Mostly this is because I’m a knob and wear shorts, don’t have booties and my gloves fall apart from old age. Basically I need to bite the bullet, wake up to the fact that this isn’t Oz and summer kit isn’t cutting it and buy up big with all this expensive winter cycling kit. Damn.

Anywho, we rolled out about 10 strong and all was good although there was some chatter about sun and shade and frost and ice and then DOH! Poor Yoshi hit a patch of black ice and stacked it. He went down but was okay – probably have a sore hip tomorrow. He continued on with us, now all paranoid about the road surface, especially on the descents.

All this was foreign to me. Black ice? What? I’ve heard about it but I’ve never actually ‘worried’ about it. Now it was an issue. We rolled slowly to the welcome cafe stop at World’s End Garden Centre in Wendover. This place is nice with actual friendly staff who are more than happy to smile and take your cash, unlike some places that spot a bunch of cyclists and begrudge them the service they are employed to provide..

Rolling out again and it was a bit warmer now which was nice. We had added riders at the cafe (other Willesden bunches) and then kept shedding riders on the way home as people peeled off to go home. I punctured (Continental tyres are crap). I noticed my rear tyre going flat after a large climb – glass. It was actually a welcome stop for most people and allowed Mike the Bike to get back on. It was a quick change (thanks for preppin’ the new tube Jim) and we soon rolled on. Split at Denham and “hammered” (sort of, keeping in mind my HR limits of 130-150bpm, whoops 186, where’d that come from?) home.