Frosty frosty frosty

A long and lazy Christmas break, too much food and no exercise and we are desperate to go for a bike ride!

Temperatures are a shade below zero and everything is sparkly white!

We have decided to try the Alban Way, a disused railway line between St Albans and Hatfield, but we need to get there by car.

 The bike rack on the car looks about as ready as the roads to take a bicycle.

But Stuart likes his bike rides, so he defrosts the car and gets everything ready. (I exit the house, once the car hot seat is thoroughly heated). Note the fetching headgear is to go under a cycle helmet, he's not going to attempt an early Loony Dook in Verulam lake.

The Alban Way is a very straight forward cycle path, flat and even and no cars.  Exactly what is needed for an icy day.

We stop in Hatfield for an average toasted tea cake and an awful cup of coffee.  We won't be returning to that establishment.

Fortunately there are no mishaps along the frosty cycle path and when we get home, thanks to a new Breadmaker Bible Christmas present, there is a delicious freshly baked Parmesan and sun dried tomato loaf waiting for us!

Ok, I admit that this blog does not contain a lot of cycling, it is more a reminder that we are prepared to cycle in all weathers!

A wintery mix

On Saturday Stuart and I attempted a late afternoon run to the Potten End Café.  We realised after 1/2 mile that there was still black ice on the roads, so turned around, headed home and picked up the car to head to the café.  A few hundred yards after our turn around point we came across a cyclist who was being loaded into a van after coming off his bike on the ice.  A wise move not to cycle that day.

 

We did however have lovely tea and cake at Potten End

 

 

Sunday morning and the weather forecast is iffy.  We start the ride in cloud, it turns to showers, then light rain, then heavy rain, then hailstones (OK cold stingy rain).  We arrive at the café cold and wet, but after tea and a toasted tea cake we are revived. 

 

Within 3 miles of setting off from the tea spot there are two punctures in the group.  Fortunately, it is blue skies and sunshine, whilst the repairs take place.

 

 

Today's ride was to Gravely, near Stevenage, so a long ride, and half way home I am getting pretty slow.  The group had had to stop and wait for me a few times on the way out, and no matter how many times people say that it is OK, you still feel pretty bad about holding people up.  Stuart had said to Ian, the ride leader, that we could find our own way home from Whitwell, so after that point the group stops waiting and I am effectively dropped.  Stuart my cycling hero stays with me all the way, and helps pushing me up the hills again.  (He's actually my everything hero, why else would I have married him, but I digress, this is a cycling blog).  Once the group is well and truly out of sight, your spirits flag and then the rain starts again, so the end of the ride was cold, wet & disheartening.

However, I have room for improvement, I have plans to start spinning classes in the New Year to help speed me up on the club rides and I am looking forward to lots of new cycling adventures in 2015!  I'm also quite proud that I achieved 66km and 512m of climbing today!