One of the best things about riding during the UK winter is the way that mother nature helps to level the playing field. For a start when the roads take on their winter plumage of mud, frozen cowshit and massive potholes that seasonal British beast the ‘winter bike’ makes its first appearance of the year after spending the summer hibernating in the dark depths of various sheds and garages.

This particular beast comes in many breeds and varieties, popular breeds include the common blue framed Ribble Cycles offering so often found in groups on the winter club run or audax ride, or the ancient 531c framed hack which gets rejuvenated every winter like Frankenstein’s monster as semi-worn components from the best bike are grafted onto its aging steel skeleton.

No longer are carbon wonder-bikes wafting past me seamlessly electronically shifting up and down the block as I churn away in their wakes wishing for lighter wheels and freshly lubed cables. Winter bikes just seem to bring most other riders closer to my level without the bothersome recourse of me actually having to train properly or buy a better bike myself.

There’s even a strange sort of inversely posh sub-culture that prevails amongst the aficionados of the dedicated winter bike. Some delight in riding the most decrepit rusting piece of junk they can find, the more uncertain its parentage and the more likely the forks look as if they’re about to part company with the frame the better. These are the riders you overhear at a cafe telling a captive audience that they havent needed to lube that 10-year-old Sedis Silver chain for the last three winters because ‘they dont make ’em like that anymore’

Others spend almost as much on the winter bike as the ‘best’ summer only machine. Often such riders will go to great lengths to create a machine that looks as ropy as possible but underneath the carefully applied grime and dents is as fast as a whippet whose been drip fed espresso for breakfast. These riders can often be found nonchalantly leaning on a lamppost waiting for the back markers of the group they’ve just decimated on the Sunday morning group ride explaining how well ‘the old thing rolls despite being heavier than the wifes Raleigh Shopper….’

In the same vein once the default drizzle setting has taken hold of the weather again I suddenly notice the visual difference between riders like myself and our sleeker peers has narrowed. Once the falling temperature and rising water table has forced the adoption of winter bib tights, overshoes, thick base layers and a reflective rain jacket its much harder to tell at a glance which of us are carrying a few extra pounds in personal ballast, and the chiselled calves and properly tanned legs of the committed roadie look very much the same as my own pale hairy lower limbs when safely inclosed in a nice thick layer of insulated lycra with a reflective band around the ankle……….

Also when viewed  through the filter of partially steamed up glasses or when trying to blink the road grit out of your eyes a £200 Rapha jacket is completely indistinguishable from a £20 Karrimor one from the Sports Direct bargain rail.

So…….. crap weather – helping badly dressed fat people look good on normal priced bikes since forever, and for insecure declining cyclists like me that’s the upside of riding during the winter.