My First Winter

This morning I rode past a rabbit which was standing in the middle of a frost-laced A- road, staring blankly at the oncoming traffic. I didn't stop, I was far too cold and if I had stopped I would have felt like an idiot. The rabbit was probably suffering the effects of mixomatosis, but to all intents and purposes the little grey bag of fluffy bones looked frozen and suicidal. Standing there with a vacuum chill sucking the air out of its lungs, cars thundering past on both sides, staring fixedly along the white lines, the rabbit looked how part of me felt. This was my first experience of Winter on a bike, and it has left me uncomfortably numb.

The Shakespeare 100 mile Sportive 2011

The clouds on the day foretold the approach of strange weather...

Sunday 11th September 2011

Two days before the Shakespeare 100, the weather forecast had settled on torrential rain around the county of Warwickshire. On top of that, meteorologists were predicting Hurricane Katia would start sweeping across the UK on the same day. In a typically chipper text, my friend Mark advised me to bring along "arm warmers and base layer". I was thinking more along the lines of an extra duvet and a good sleep in. However, with my first proper competition on the horizon I had no choice but to endure 100 miles of whatever the Gods could throw at me.