So long time to blog, and seeing as the last one was written around the  subject of Fish Keeping, it’s even longer since I put both middle fingers to keyboard on the subject of bikes and the riding there of.

Well mea culpa (whatever that means), sorry, I know I’ve been letting down my loyal readership of three or sometimes four people, but the thing is I just haven’t been riding for ages. The reasons are varied, the excuses are legion and well-worn, but what it basically comes down to is this…… I just don’t like or see the point of riding through the winter months. There, I’ve said it. sorry but that’s just how I feel at my time of life these days. I’m not training for anything in particular these days (the dying embers of my competitive flame got snuffed out years ago), riding on the mud and slurry encrusted lanes around my house from about October onwards is both dirty and downright dangerous and I hate fitting mudguards to my road bike. I could go on but I’m sure you get the rough idea.

During previous winters I’ve kept a vague semblance of fitness by riding my Mountain Bikes through the chilly months, but for some reason this year I couldn’t even muster the enthusiasm for the three to four-hour round trip in the car to a trail centre for two and a bit hours of massively frustrating two-wheeled ineptitude, followed by the purgatory of washing filth encrusted bikes and kit when I got home in subzero temperatures on my driveway. (Not really selling that am I…….)

So yes with my pedalling mojo at an all time low the bikes of all tyre widths and sizes have been providing winter quarters for the spider population of the garden shed for the last few months. In the last few weeks however, my cycling juices have slowly been stirring. Finally after its usual couple of false starts and dawns the British spring is limping into view with all the enthusiasm of an aged Spanish beach rides donkey with one hoof in the glue factory.

So last week I dusted off the Sabbath (thankfully Ti frames don’t rust), pumped the tyres up, lubed the chain and folded myself gracelessly into my Bib-shorts. Twenty seven miles I managed that morning according to Strava, and not one Strava achievement or cup did I receive for that ride when it was uploaded. I was woefully slow. My old friend the aching knee grumbled, my back was killing me after half and hour and my ankles seemed to have both developed an alarming clicking noise which occurred at the top of every pedal stroke. I wasn’t worried though. After such a long layoff I knew I was going to be riding with all the grace and finesse of a one-legged Gibbon, and have the endurance and lung capacity of an eighties Darts player. So I kept the chain religiously on the inner ring, spun the legs and reminded my body as gently as possible that this wasn’t going to kill it. And do you know what? it was a ride to savour. The sun was out, the roads were quiet and because i didn’t see one rider from the Weaver Valley Cycling Club every rider I saw smiled and said hello or raised a hand of the bar in camaraderie. It was good to be a cyclist. It didn’t matter that I was tootling along creaking and wincing, I knew that from this position of abject weakness the only possible trajectory was upwards, and as I spun down the byways of leafy Cheshire I plotted my rise back to cycling mediocrity.

So this morning I set out bright and early at half past eleven to stretch those underused cycling muscles a bit further. I wasn’t sure how far I was going to ride but I did know that to get any fitness back reasonably quickly each ride I do needed to push me just a little bit harder than the last one. So with this goal in mind I pointed my handlebars roughly in the direction of the towering local heights of Alderley Edge and boldly set out. Thirty six point seven miles later I wearily slotted the key into my front door. Yes I’d definitely pushed myself further and harder, but with the benefit of hindsight should have shortened the ride by about five or six miles as the last miles were utter misery. I grovelled in my lowest gear up the hill back into the my village, vainly clicking my righthand shifter against its stop hoping to find another gear which deep down I knew wasn’t there. After abandoning my bike in my hallway I lay on my bed for the next ten minutes waiting for my quads to stop involuntarily cramping and summoning the will to sit up and peel off my sweaty cycling kit and get in the shower. When my wife came home from work and hour later I was still apparently ‘an alarming shade of red / puce’ around the face……..

It was still a good ride all the same. I rode a couple of the nastier local climbs and managed according to my Garmin over 1,800 feet of elevation gain. Even after living in this area over twenty years as well I’m still managing to discover new local lanes and byways to ride down and this morning uncorked a couple of lovely rolling country lanes which will definitely be forming part of my local riding loops in the future. These simple pleasures are what keep me riding my bike. Yes I’m slow and unfit, and struggling to ride close to forty miles is nothing to be particularly around of if you call yourself a cyclist, but that doesn’t really bother me. I’m going to enjoy my rides this spring and summer and because I’m starting from such a low state of riding fitness I know i’m going to (baring accidents and injuries) improve with almost every ride which in turn will keep me motivated and interested.

I know I’ll pay for todays adventure when I ease my aching legs out of bed tomorrow, but if the suns out again I might even load the car and exhume a Mountain Bike from the depths of the shed…………