Cold weekend

I had planned to do a short ride on Saturday, but when I got up after a poor night's sleep and looked at the frost and fog outside I was sorely tempted not to bother, justifying it to myself by way of the gym the previous day and the spin class the day prior. As I sat in the window seat shaking off the Friday night Jack Daniels I saw Tom, next door, all togged up and leaving for Barby, 40km away. It was this that inspired me to go out, but boy was it cold. I wore 3 layers of merino (howies vest, howies baselayer, rapha sportwool top and howies softshell) which kept me warm but my feet, even in two pairs of socks, were frozen. Literally. So I managed 38km, but didn't particularly enjoy it and felt like I'd turned squares. Never the less its more miles in the bank.

More excitingly, whilst chatting with Mark Fothergill on Friday evening, he offered to lend me a bike, so Edward, my son, could come with us on the L2P. This was great. Edward has been quite keen but I haven't got £500 plus to buy him a suitable bike and without one it would be a tad tricky. So, Mark dropped the bike around on Saturday and off we trolled to buy Edward some shoes, and a saddle clamp (I had a saddle). Its a long story but basically John Atkins in Leamington (http://www.johnatkinscycles.co.uk/) excelled themselves in terms of customer service, selling us some top of the range carbon soled Specialzed shoes, cleats, new pedals (it was impossible to get cleats for the pedals Mark had supplied unfortunately) and a new seat pin with clamp (you can't buy the clamp alone :-( ), for less than the price of the shoes alone. They even fitted the lot and put the bike on a rolling road to set it up and get Edward used to the clipless pedals.

A massive big thank you to Mark for the loan of the bike and John Atkins for going the extra mile and a bit more.

So, when we went out Sunday morning for a spin, he was the first person I know, who first time out on clipless didn't fall off. And he paced me round a 22km course and beat me in the final sprint for home (boys will be boys). So lets hope he keeps it up. I know he enjoyed it and whilst I was extremely nervous taking him out (into traffic...) I also thoroughly enjoyed it and I look forward to covering many km together in the future.

Cutting another long story short, in deference to Tom (Beth's Tom not Tom next door - this could get confusing, I might have to refer to Tom next door by his nom du guerre, {Peaches}) and because Beth pointed out the inherent dangers (no-one pointed them out to me!) we decided it was perhaps too soon for Edward to take part in the L2P, due to his inexperience. However, I am looking forward to training with him and maybe one day we can do an epic together. Who knows what the future may hold, may be one day soon this will be Edward leading the charge for the line:

(I'm pretty sure this picture is copyrighted by AP, so if you want a copy you'll have to go here and buy one http://www.pictopia.com/perl/gal/ap?request_id=1193162d43, like I did )