weather with you

So the one thing that gets constantly asked if me is this: you cycled in that? 

For most non-cycling commuters, the idea that you would willingly submit yourself to the rage of the weather that makes up these isles mystifies them. There they are in their nice warm cars, trains and buses shaking their heads as some lone cyclist passes them...

Spring

Spring is wet. Very wet. It is worse than the wet of autumn and winter as it is wet interspersed with the promise of warmer weather ahead. Every sunny warm day when the lesser spotteds* come out is punctured by those artic winds and rain still shouting that they aren't finished with you yet.

You try and get your clothing right but you are either too warm or too wet, forgetting that important  rule that you are water proof! In those rainy times I have to remind myself that if I was training it in I would be sitting at my desk with wet clothes rather than the nice dry ones I wear when I get showered and changed at work. 

Thanks to cycling clothes, I am drier than most people coming in during the spring rains.

*lesser-spotteds: people who appear once the winds and rain look likely to disappear. Those empty lanes and roads you were used to are suddenly filled with a mixture of lack of fitness and too much fitness (thanks to their indoors trainers). They will scurry back into their burrows very quickly in April and May as the weather reminds them that it hasn't finished with the crap yet. 

Summer

Summer is the pita. You dress appropriately for the weather just for that artic punch to have one dying swipe at you. At least you don't have to worry about being cold. Seriously, wet is nothing, cold is all. 

So on those rare days when the sun is shining and the roads are cracking, you are peddling along only to be interrupted by the lesser spotteds and the rest of the fair weathers. Don't get me wrong, it's great to see so many people on their bike but those with their fear of melting carbon,

give of a whiff of arrogance that makes me want to scream: "You weren't there man. You weren't there when the winds hit, when the rains almost drowned us...you weren't there!" 

Autumn 

Speaking of winds, the first time I seriously encountered these was in autumn. Winds are rightfully called hills without benefits. You get plastered head on, speed dropping as fast as your gears as you try and keep some sort of speed up..and there is no downhill to compensate. 

Even worse, if you cycle in an urban arena, quite often you can be cycling along, quite comfortably, thinking "oh good, not getting any headwind" then a gap in a building sends you flying left or right as the boreas keeps its promise to remind you that all you are is a person on a flimsy machine. To drivers reading, this is why we get particularly angry at windy times, we could just get blown into you thanks to your closeness, and...there..is...nothing...we...could...do to prevent it. 

But, I hear you say, if the wind is at you on the way in, surely you get a tailwind on the way out?

I wish. 

The gods will not like that! No, the gods will shift the wind around so that you get a repeat performance - especially if, like me, you commute on an east-west axis. 

But

But

those days when the gods look favourably and push on your back...

Winter

Winter. When the dark comes to swallow you up. The crispness of the clear night, the silence of the cave.

Apologies to Bill Watterson

Now, it could be that I was a December baby but I love winter. Some fear the ice - for obvious reasons, a fall on that is not pleasant. But I love the fact that you go out in winter leggings, layers and coat, a buff on your head, a buff round your neck ready to warm the face, big gloves on as you head out. Absolutely love that. This winter, there was 24 hours of snow and I headed out in fresh powder, no cars, the darkness and dust baffling any sound as I crunched my way down a main road on my way to work - colleagues thought I was mad but, to me, it was lovely. 

Of course, you get the usual rubbish that wrecks your mechanics , the constant cleaning to keep the bike going. the sheer crap that deposits on the road leaving you in the dark and cold having to repair a puncture, the appalling driving that seems to occur whenever conditions are terrible, the aforementioned ice.

Yet, when that caveman instinct takes over when you are out there in the gloom of the evening, when that instinct tells you to push it, there are predators abound, when that air hits the back of your throat and the traffic clears and you are you, alone...

Not so much because it's there...

...more like it’s in the way.

So there I was, being passed by five year olds on stabilisers but feeling great with it. But then I had an idea…why not cycle to work? Sure you’ve only been back on a bike for a month or so. Sure, your idea of speed has a tortoise looking in contempt at you but why not? Surely I could do it?

So first I had to plan a route. Being on a hybrid meant that I could veer off-road down tracks and bridle paths rather than stick to the tarmac.  So which route?

The route I chose took me through a couple of bridle paths, Nonsuch Park and onto the A232. I thought, hey that will be fine! But I didn’t count on one-thing…hills.

When I mentioned this on Cyclechat, a local lass on there said “What hills?” They may have not been hills to her, but to me they were Cols. They were Alpine passes.

I see these towering mountains of doom, these Everests, thinking of how on earth was a big fat bear meant to get halfway up, let alone over the top…

Others see a speed hump.

So I did what I have done since the start and hit the web. All of a sudden I was confronted by some really weird language – cadence? Grinding? What on earth was everyone talking about?

As far as I could tell, all those cyclists spinning like loons had not, unlike me, dropped down too many gears but were increasing their spin – this is cadence. Good cadence is meant to mean good climbing. Grinding was when you are in too big a gear and you slowly pedal..your..way..up (I think...trust me, the gearing on bikes appears to be the reverse of cars!).

So I went on a practice run. After risking limb at Chessington and a nice jaunt through Nonsuch Park, I hit the A232.

The one thing you will notice when you start is that all these roads that appear flat, are not necessarily so.

There you are pedaling away but then you suddenly start slowing down, So you push up a bit and you still slow down – bugger, it’s an incline. But that’s OK. It will soon be over.

Not on this road. After the lights, there is a slope up. Argh! And from a standing start. You push, you weave but, but, before you know it, you’re at the top.

Amazing, King of the Hill. I can do this, you think as you freewheel down the other side.

Of course what you forget is that a lot of Surrey runs on ridges, that means ups as well as downs.

Just pass Sutton, there’s a hill that even now can get to me. It doesn’t matter if you’ve managed to get your speed up on the previous downhill, gravity is your mistress and boy is she angry.  About half way up, my legs start moaning. I am now standing, bobbing and weaving and thinking the chant that goes into everyone who’s rubbish at hills' heads at this time: “Don’t stop, mustn’t walk. Don’t stop, mustn’t walk…”

But you’re out the otherside. Again, that elation when you haven’t stopped. Sure, you’re riding at 5mph, your legs are now jelly, your heart is beating like the timpani section and Niagara falls seems to have taken root in your helmet, but you’ve done it…until the next one.

Now, most of Ride London is fairly flat but for a big lump like me, I have to start training to get past Pyrford, Leith Hill, Box Hill and Wimbledon Hill. On top of that you have the ups and downs round Oxshott which, although slight, can happily sap my legs.

Some people have asked why should they sponsor me for cycling. After all, I cycle every day to work. But not only is it 100 miles – and having to maintain a minimum of 11.8mph  -  but, according to Sportive Cyclist I will be climbing 4,325 feet (1,318km).

And I seriously don’t like hills.