Geese and Cows and Sheep and Chill

Started writing about the Kielder 100 and how I crashed and buried my race at 50 miles with a broken front brake and how flat and dispirited I felt and how it turns out that I cared quite a lot about finishing the event that I said I didn't give a stuff about. But it seems pointless. Took the road bike out yesterday and had a 90-minute tear up, hammered every climb, big-ringed the flats, screamed down every descent and came back with a smile on my face.

Still regret crashing, but I know it was my own fault for riding too fast in the wrong place, end of. So, I'll go back next year. Fitter. Faster. Brighter. And make up for it. So let's close that box. For now.

And then this evening took my tired legs and the Rat and span out along the Longdendale Trail, looking around at fields full of cows and geese. Which seemed odd. And sheep. And mirrored lorries on the water's surface. And crags I've climbed on. And crags I haven't. Then rolled home in grey, melancholic early evening light with just a hint of autumnal edge in the breeze.

And there was something comfortable and familiar about riding a bike in the chill. A distant echo of winter. And somewhere inside there was a little buzz of anticipation and faint memories of knobblies buzzing across frozen grit trails into a pool of focused bright. Yes please.