Quiet

Not just the blog either, I've fallen foul of the dreaded winter sickness bug in the last couple of weeks, training was replaced with bed and stairs faced with a deep breath and much use of handrails.

I got out and rode Wednesday, it was good too, the call which came through 5 minutes before our meet time followed a day of heavy rain, the roads home were flooded and I admit to a certain amount of trepidation.

My response to the 'Are you riding question' was a simple "Hell Yes", in my mind sits the fact that I've missed a couple of weeks and face next week in Copenhagen with no chance of riding, I was going no matter what.  Jamer was game as ever, trooper that he is and when I got to his house he let me know that we had a few other hardy souls joining us.

His demo Giant 650b sat proudly in the rain whilst last minute faffing was done and we were off.

It was cold and I quickly realised that my winter gloves need a little bit of thought, 10 minutes from home and I was already losing the feeling in my fingers.

Getting to the wood the rain returned and so did the mist, it made it ethereal and I was soon enjoying my legs moving again, no point dodging puddles, it was too wet for that and to try was simply wasting energy.

With my arse perched on a Selle Italia SLR and fit clipped into Shimano XTRs for the first time I was in for a voyage of discovery..

Loved it though, my night riding set up is finally as I want it with decent lights on both bar and head and good company with great mates.

The descents were hard earned and techy, stuff ridden countless times takes on  new challenge when the water is racing you down hill and even the most innocuous roots have turned wet glass slippy.  My riding felt good though and I was pretty chuffed with my fitness even after the illness.  I'm a fair way off century fit, but I've a few months of turbo to work on that ;o)