Below is a bit of the route I intend to ride on Friday, weather permitting. I have just seen the forecast for Friday and it seems that, although it may be damp, the temperature should be around 6 degrees which should mean that the roads are free of black ice and reasonably safe to ride. By the way, the end of this section finishes at a cafe that sells a rather good cup of coffee! See you there on Friday.

At Last!

Oh yes, today was good enough. We managed a ride, 13.5 miles may not be much but after a week of the sort of weather bad enough to stop me riding, 13 miles was fine. Snow was still much in evidence on some roads but cycling was safe enough along the car tyre tracks. Today's ride was ment to be on the Dawes Audax (left) but a last minute puncture put paid to that! Had to change bikes at the last minute and ended up going out on the Pinarello, prefer to ride that any way. The only problem was that it is mudgardless and I didn't really fancy the concequences of riding with out them, on the obviously soaking roads. Race Blades to the rescue (see right)! They did their job well enough and the bike didn't end up too mucky. To be honest, the ride was really very enjoyable and I fancied going on a lot further, but we didn't push our luck.

Another frustrating day, beautiful out there but not cycling weather I reckon. Still risk of icy patches on the roads and I am not prepared to chance it. Too old probably. Still it did give me a chance to catch up on other things such as "home maintenance" as my wife called it. Celling painting and some snow clearing and walking to the shops to get essentials, assuming they have any. I herd yesterday that milk and bread had run out and deliveries were unlikely due to the conditions.
On the left are the icy conditions to which I allude. Note the 4 X 4. Not mine I hasten to add, but perhaps one of the rare occasions where one may have been useful. I do think though that the snow does make dog walking a new pleasure and makes familiar walks seem, some how, different. I'm off to the shops now; later!

The Roberts

Well, here it is, the new made-to-measure bike complete with proud owner. All I need now is the weather to ride it. I have dreamed about a campag equiped bike all my life and I hope it will be worth the wait, not to mention the money. It has a full Centuar group set, almost. The brakes are veloce, I guess the budget didn't stretch to Centuar! Also the wheel set is built by Harry Rowland and are Mavic Open Pro rims laced to Novatech hubs. For any one who cares the tyres are Continental 4 Seasons.
The bike has been designed for long distance comfort and I intend using it for cyclosportives over the summer period. As such the front end is a lot higher than on my other bikes and I feel fairly up-right on it. One amazing thing was that when I picked it up I didn't even have to adjust the seat height. It fitted, so to speak, like a glove. Following very limited use, a nine and a 43 mile ride, it feels absolutely brilliant.

Musing about my new bicycle.

It's snowing and I'm stuck working from home. Coffee break at the moment! Of course the main frustration currently is that I feel I am unable to ride my bike, the roads being to slippery. When I see others attempting to ride I do think of myself as a little wimpy, but tough! Better safe than sorry. The thing is that I have a brand new Roberts just waiting to be ridden and it looks as if it going to be several days, weeks even before that will be possible on passibly clean roads.