So, as I mentioned yesterday, the old bike is now the winter bike, and that winter bike is now winter ready.  Or at least it was in theory.  The only way to find out for sure was to ride it and put it to the test.  That’s the whole thing with theories, right?

However, after the second storm last night I had grave concerns about the state of the roads.  The field behind the house had seagulls bobbing around on it.  Possibly ducks too, but digging out the binoculars to check that out seems a tad de trop, so I didn’t.  After some internal debate, and considering that the weather was currently still and approaching sunny, I decided to just go out for an hour or so, see how the bike went, see how I went, and leave it at that.  All this not riding, and complete lack of head space, has been doing my head in, and I needed a ride, even it it wasn’t likely to be a memorable one!  Better out than in, etc.

Sometimes rides that have no purpose, goal, rhyme nor reason, are a good thing.  You feel more able to stop and smell the roses.  However, what with the roses being past their best, I decided to go and appreciate the reservoir instead, partially because I was curious as to how full it would be, and also because I like it up there – wide open spaces ‘n all.  And dog walkers to irritate by my very existence, and to whom to be relentlessly polite and cheerful.  Always fun ;).  It was gorgeous up there too – like a big mercury mirror.  Not as dark as it looks in the photos, but that’s what you get for not being a photographer and pointing your lens towards the sun.  Kinda more atmospheric my way though I reckon, so maybe I’ll pretend it’s come out that way on purpose, or just put them on Instagram and pretend I’m arty…

As I cycled my way around the edge, it occurred to me that eldest, having walked to school to avoid riding through the floods, would be walking home again in the dark.  I wasn’t that keen on him doing it yesterday in the storm, and since youngest and friend were to be collected anyway…I had a three birds, one stone, lightbulb moment.  So I actually used the bike for a constructive purpose, and popped in to his school to leave him a message to tell him he’d be picked up later.  I felt positively efficient.  Not to mention the whole rosey glow of doing something nice for someone that they weren’t expecting – that wasn’t a bad feeling either :).

I did a simple, made up as I went along, loop.  I tried to avoid hills, as ever, and roads that I know are liable to be under water at the best of times.  Those roads I did use were indeed very wet, with a lot of standing water, and frequently covered in debris.  Unsurprisingly they’re were not muddy – in fact you can hardly tell I used my bike, which is a bonus!  Since the purpose of the ride was to check the bike out, I should probably tell you that that bike was feeling pretty good, apart from some alignment issues in extreme gears – top top ring of the triple is scraping so I had to keep half a click down.  You either understand what that means, or you don’t…but most of you will :).  The winter tyres kept me rubber down, though I was most definitely not pushing it.  We were made for each other – a bit slow, a bit under-used, a bit off form, and not perfectly aligned *grin*.

It was good to be finally back out there again, even if my form is still way off.  Good for the head if nothing else.  Mind you, I guess I’d have been faster without the photo ops, debris avoidance, and mental meandering… :).

Cycling time: 1:01:32 hrs
Distance: 14.7 miles
Avs: 14.3 mph.
ODO: 15444.92 miles

I’d probably better not think of what’s happening to my mileage stats now, right…?