Fuel.

A soft, steady and roasting solo 50-miles plus in the Peak yesterday - sort of Stoopid Loop - interrupted only by the wanderings of suicidal grice (yes, the plural of grouse is definitely 'grice' or should be), an ice cream stop courtesy of coincidental friends and a very dead right-hand pedal. Big thanks to 18 Bikes for selling me new ones.

A day of proper, luminous happiness under a burning sky made bearable by the wind. Had this playing on repeat in my head and later on my shuffle along the Longdendale Trail...

Funny stuff. Somewhere in the last six months, I've lost the cold, hard, glittering ball of sadness and anger that I've used as fuel for too long. Trying to ride in the moment, feeling the drumming of tyres on parched trails made rutted by dinosaur bike tracks and the sound of the wind brushing past. Which all sounds like a load of rubbish, but there you go.

Someone once told me that I rode a bike as if I hated it. I'm not sure about that. I think it was more that I rode like someone who didn't like himself very much mixed in with the intrinsic brutality you sometimes need to ride stuff in the Peak. And some people are very good at picking at your insecurities and throwing them back in your face. And no, I'm not Nijinsky on a bike, but so what.

But anyway, it was a cracking day of warm, trashed legs and a sort of calm, slightly poignant happiness.

Blue.

Scorchio...

Everything's gone dry. Trails that ten days ago were a mess of gritty mud have dried into rippled, rutted, fast-packed Peak ceramic. Shorts are a given and not an if. And you can almost ride and then put the bike away without washing it.

Almost but not quite because the perma-mud along the track below Derwent Edge is still fighting a valiant rearguard action against sun and drying winds. Which in a funny way just makes the rest of it even better.

A lovely ride of halves in the sun today. Started alone on familar trails unvisited for a while, tip-toeing along delicate lines, remembering how the Pace feels on hard, dry, grippy ground, consciously relaxing and letting the bike have its head down a rubble-filled toboggan run. Then gawping foolishly at the views across to Kinder before heading up again, tyres drumming on rock, legs hurting in a good way.

Then, by chance, meeting friends high above Hope and tagging along for a chattery, mellow, hour or two. Round to Ladybower for tea and cake then up the slabby climb, along and down my favourite climb. Compromised. Skimming through rock gardens and digging old lines from deep inside the reptilian, mountain biking bit of my brain.

Before saying goodbyes and winching back, slowly onto the high ground again. Enjoying the peace and the views and the sunshine. No hurry. No racing. Just a gentle roll back to the car. A happy day.

Love.

Yesterday turned out to be one of those rides that took on an organic life of its own. Plan A was to head over to Edale then potter around the Jacob's Ladder / Roych Clough Loop with a flock of STWers, which is where it began. Bright and beautiful across the Roych, ten-foot snow drifts still there but now hard, grippy and rideable, stepping over gate tops near South Head. Dodging crevasses and body-shaped cavities in the snow. Like Everest but without the red-socked remains.

And somewhere near the ford, surfing snow waves, a small voice in the back of my head started whispering, 'Cut Gate, you could head over there instead.' And by the time I'd reached the Rushup road, the idea had gathered layers like a falling hailstone and become something bright and glittery.

Pottered over Rushup in a pool of warm anticipation then gunned the right-hand descent from Hollins in a mess of sludge and frozen slush - new steps there - before climbing gently, steadily, sub-threshold up Jaggers, down Spud Alley and over to Fairholmes for duck spotting and water before rolling along the reservoir side to the bottom of Cut Gate.

Draggy, slow, anticipation-starred climb up onto the moors proper, where the snow was waiting with open arms and a five-mile intermittent drift of deceptively slippy, sugary but just about rideable snow. But it wasn't really about the riding, more just being up there and the peace and the views and the solitude and the lack of buzzing digital noise and radios and the brutal racket of car tyres on wet roads.

And being alone leaves you the space to appreciate your friends. So screw Valentine's Day, this is a thank you to all my mates who've stood by me over a crap few months, the people who understand who I am and what I am, who don't make things up about me to suit their own needs, or put me down,  and who've been there for me. Thanks.

Dived down Mickleden, below the snowline and into Langsett, tired and happy. Draggy rail trail home with one last sluggish road climb, tired legs turning on automatic, but knowing there's much, much more there.  A lovely day. Who needs plans when you have a bike, a map and lights?

You'd have loved it.

Nice Ride.

Great ride yesterday above Ladybower with a bunch of guys off the STW forum, really nice mix of people and attitudes and terrain and some stuff still a lot more rideable than you'd think, though the bottom of the Whinstone Lee Tor descent above the pub is a real mess at the moment. Massively impressed by Will who managed the whole loop, including the so-called Beast on a singlespeed cross bike. Can't imagine ever having the combination of finesse and fitness to manage that.

Then, on impulse took off again from the car park at Ladybower for an extra loop - packing lights always a good idea in the Peak, they're like a riding passport after the curfew. Headed up the cattle grid, down the concrete switchbacks in fading grey twilight, then struggled up Potato Alley - smoother than is has been for a while - and was wrapped in darkness on the Roman Road.

Funny how night changes everything. That odd, warm thing of existing in a small pool of bright white light, the way your brain morphs odd shapes into things it might recognise - posts into people, rocks into crouching dogs - and how a slithery but manageable trail in daylight, feels so much more tenuous when all you can feel is the grip of your tyres, or the lack of it.

Drove home in a different bubble of light, tired but happy.

Wasn't expecting that...

Ooops, for a London boy, I seem to have been thoroughly de-urbanised. Hopped a train into Manchester on Sunday morning on a shopping mission for the first time in ages. It's 33 minutes away and a different universe full of shiny things and people, spending their weekend ogling and buying stuff. People who care about their clothes. And look each other up and down for labels. And have started to do that London thing of retreating into themselves because there simply isn't enough space for too many people.

Felt like an alien floating above it all. Light years away from the urban-savvy London kid I used to be, the one who couldn't imagine living anywhere else and missed the buzz when he was away. I've still got the twitching urban danger antennae, the ones that work everywhere from Brixton to Bogota, but where I used to enjoy the edginess of big cities, now I just find them slightly unsettling.

Did you know that there's a clothes shop in Manchester with a glass frontage lined and columned with dozens of old Singer sewing machines? Fantastic. No idea what it's supposed to say, but it looks amazing.

Did the shopping except for the bits where the shop I wanted had gone. Or relocated. Or been absorbed by some other shop. And wandered slowly back to Piccadily in classic Mancunian murk.

There's something lovely about looking up and seeing sun-stroked hills all around you. Dumped the shopping at home, wolfed some carbs then chucked the Rat in the car - which I'd not normally do - and drove over to Ladybower.

Same place, different day...

Just span gently around the reservoirs on semi-slicks. No rushing, no racing, no hammering. Drinking in spectacular views, chatting to folk along the way, washing the morning's claustrophobia out of my head. And feeling lucky.

ps: It's 33 minutes into Manchester and 31 minutes coming back, what happened to the missing two minutes, can I have them back please?