What do you want from a ride? Hidden lanes, surprises, views, a few interesting hills? A decent distance, a bit of a challenge? Sunshine is a must, of course.
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| The hardy seven (photo by Andy) |
And then comes January, with its icy blast. Those ideals are buried beneath the permafrost, and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is stripped right down to the basics. Survival. Sustenance. Of course we could just stay beneath our duvets for the colder days of January, but for some, it's important to do some sort of a ride with friends. We were gifted zero-ish temperatures with no sunshine by the weather men. So the objective was for a boring ride in which nothing happened. No falling off on ice. No traffic-free, frosty roads. No zooming down hills towards unknown hazards. Preferably no frostbite.
These objectives were largely met for our ride to Windsor today. A group of seven adventurers gathered in the far north of Twickenham. Brian and Graham were only here for the beer, and went home again with a few miles and an attendance point under their belts. The others followed me on a well-tested route around the north of Heathrow, through the villages of Sipson and Longford to get to Windsor.
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| Maddie trying to revive Andy |
The offer of an indoor lunch at The Windsor Pie Cafe was rejected by a small balance of opinion, so we ate at Cinnamon Cafe. All too soon it was time to go back out in the cold, and we went the flat way home; along the Runnymede cycle path and through Thorpe and Chertsey to Shepperton for teas and chat. A lot of chat. It was approaching sunset when we left.
I counted them all out, and I counted them all back in again. A successful, uneventful ride. Thank you all for your company, and thanks to David W for back-marking. I hope everyone made it home and has now thawed out. Let's do it all again next week.
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| Temperature chart |
1 Comment:
Brian Bent 12 January 2025 at 23:12 GMT
I like the prompt C&M reports , and the new temperature chart !!
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