Alpine Roadie...

Back from a brilliant 11 days in the Alps riding, mostly, up big alpine cols. What is there to say? Long steady climbs. Considerate motorists. Ridiculous full replica kit-wearing peacocks. Galibier. Croix de Feux. Alp d'Huez. Cutting hairpins uphill. And down. Birthday hotels. Wine. Croissants. Not together. French beef. Sunshine. Laughter. Tired legs. Ace company. Shazza. Mog. And a sort of half-formed plan to do the Marmotte next year. Yes together.

Top of the Col du Glandon. Relatively steep. Relatively fast. Bonkers scenic. Mogtastic descent. I love the turbine howl of Exalith in the morning.

Less scenery, more road. Love the col mentality that says it's fine to stop your car in the middle of the road at the summit of any col while you stand there taking photos. Looking at the view. Looking gormless. Must be the altitude. Gasp.

The view down the valley. That's the middle bit of the Glandon snaking away in the middle distance. Funny thing. Imagine Holme Moss plonked down in the middle of that lot, it'd barely register. Looking forward to seeing the Tour de Yarkshire peleton steaming up that next year. I can't imagine it'll take long.

And why is it that you always leave in summer and return in autumn. How does that work? 

Didn't Chase Anybody.

Lovely road ride on Sunday. Lots of hills. Lots of sunshine. Lots of peace and just the odd miserable looking cyclist - yes you, roadies and you, mountain bikers, both equally grumpy looking - and in all the hills and bumps I climbed, I didn't chase anybody.

Yay for me. No carrots. No sticks. No need. It's kind of a small victory in a slightly bigger war.

In other news: the GiT is on the verge of being reborn. After three years of not really caring how or what I drove, the poxy, whispering, OE-type back-box pretty much fell off the Mk2 and, well, if you have a stainless Jetex just sat there, you really might as well use it. So on it went.

Hurrah for a familar, grumbly, deep-toned idle and that little hint of a hissing rasp at 2,000rpm or so and suddenly it sounds like a car. And all it really needs now is a branch manifold, the VT engine mount(s) and the TSR motor, with a big-valve head, cam, chip and all. You can take your poxy turbo diesel estates and shove 'em.

Hello spring. Missed ya.

Dirty, filthy, titanium, road speed...

An ace weekend. Saturday out with my mate Steevo for one of those even-paced Peak trundles that just seem to be just right - took the Pace, so Rags could bang his headset against the bike cave door and was all the more mellow for it.

Traditional 10 o'clock start from Hope, a steady roll along the Roman Road, up the concrete switchbacks and down a water-ravaged Lockerbrook with new steps and plenty looseness. Tea and ducks at Fairholmes, then over WLT the long way up and the short way down. Riding appallingly badly, with a cracking inability to adjust to the faster steering of the Pace, but it didn't really seem to matter.

Then back to Hope via the Roller Coaster and back down the Roman Road and a fleecing at the Woodbine. Dear God that place has got stupidly expensive. Nice to catch up with a not seen enough mate and good to ride and not feel completely broken afterwards...

.... so took Mog out on Sunday for one of those ever-expanding road trundles and felt, well, not quite good, but okay. Wore, erm, shorts and a jersey and NO windproof. Five hours, some biggish climbs, some nice views and a horrendous squeal and pulsing from the rear brake that the drop into the back of Castleton finally killed. Whew...

HRV fine this morning, weather good, clocks forward. And suddenly, this evening, it all clicked into place. At last. With 90 minutes of dirty, filthy, titanium road speed. One of those rides where there seems to be a tailwind even when there isn't one, when you just fly up climbs and every flat is blur of big-ring speed. Finished over Monk's with a big grin and a soap-time view down into Glossop.

 Hello legs, welcome back.

Another one gone...

Love my road bike. Hate fucking moronic brain-dead murdering car drivers. Over the crest of Chunal and flat out big-ringing it down into the sweeping S-bends towards Little Hayfield. Pedal down, knee out and leeeean into the lefthander, drift to the side of the overbanding, loads of traffic coming the other way. Dead people, commuters.

Then, fuck, some wanker in a silver grey Defender driving straight at me, overtaking on my side of the road, because I don't exist and he's a fuckwit and he'd rather kill me that get home 30 seconds later and of course, in his superfast Defender, he's going to scream past the 20-odd cars in front of him and reach clear, blue tarmac.

But first he wants to kill me. Tuck hard left into the wall as close as I dare, too much focus even to bother to shout at the cock. And then the moment's gone. I'm still alive, anger brushed into me by the draft of his passing. And I want to murder him. I want to slam his head repeatedly into the dry-stone wall. I want to torch his wanky, life-styling Landrover in front of his piggy eyes. But mostly I just want to kill him. Because then he'll understand.

And the funny thing is that I'm angry, but I'm not scared. I don't really know why. It's not like nearly dying on mountaineering epics. Or almost dying on my motorbike when I was 19. For some reason, I just don't care any more. Not in a bleak, despairing sort of way. Not in a 'my life's pointless and worthless' sort of way. Not in any sort of way at all really.

Bits of people...

I bought Cycling Plus out of curiosity, it doesn't have any emotional ditches hidden inside and well, I was curious. And it was kind of okay. I read Rob Penn's article about building his ultimate bike, the one that's also a BBC television programme and a book, the one where he goes around the world speccing out the parts he reckons are the best then building them onto a Rourke frame.

It made me think. Not that it would be so amazing to travel around cherry-picking parts from Campag and Chris King and obscure Italian componentry brands, but that it would be infinitely better to build a bike made from parts created by people you love. It's a good idea in theory I guess, but problematic in that you'd have to pragmatically build a series of relationships with people who made every part of a bike - saddles, bars, frames, wheels, spokes... It's a big ask. And to be honest, somewhat unrealistic.

But it made me think about other stuff. About things and love and the reverberations of stuff that sits in your house, in your life. Things that other people left behind. Books, pictures, music, the funny Ecuadorian thing on top of the VCR, the bar tape on my road bike, the strange selection of penguins that pop up all over the house, the little pot the garlic sits in, the plant on top of the bookshelf, the comedy fridge magnet, the Chrismas pudding tea pot and the odd French coffee mug with the hare on the side. And the tea-pot, the little one.

They're all little bits of people. Little triggers for memories. Freeze frame segments of points in life. And I guess somewhere out in the world, little bits of me are floating in other people's lives.

One black finger...

I broke a spoke in my rear Kysrium last week. No obvious reason, just getting out of the saddle at the bottom of a rise and, ping, metallic rattle, gone. And because of the spacing and the tension on Kysriums, it was enough to bend the rim far enough out of shape that it rubbed the chain stays on both sides. So thanks to International Rescue, Glossop Chapter for bailing me out and saving my cleats and chain stays.

And then, when I got home, I realised the chain was broken too - one inner plate snapped. And of course, because I like to make my life difficult, it's an 11-speed Campag chain. So there I was, one rare spoke and one rare chain to the bad and one sulking Planskey X or Lysnklet Ti Pro Road Mog scowling in the corner.

Cue endless calls and searches and eventually spokes ordered by the three from Pedalon - thanks Kie for telling me how to date the wheel, first digits of the bar code on the rim sticker if you're wondering - along with the stop-gap installation of a ten-speed quick link, which does work, even if technically it didn't ought to.

Chain ordered, spoke ordered. Brand new Bontrager Race X-Lite transmogrified wheel installed and dis-installed because, well, it just looked wrong. Pimpy as feck with white spokes and red alloy nipples, but just not right with stealth grey titanium, though it would look great with pimped out black and red and white swoopy carbon I guess. Anyone want to buy a mismatched wheel-set of uncertain provenance?

Big props to Pedalon for delivering next day after a 3pm order, but shock horror, the spokes are black, but hey. So in it goes, some gentle tweaking on the wheel jig and now I have a rear silver Ksyrium SL with one black spoke. And you know what, I really like it. There's something human and real and endearing about imperfection in the middle of something as improbably perfect and round as a wheel.

And it's one raised black finger to roadie fascist, black and white thinking, life tyrants. Besides, it was hard enough finding a black spoke, I simply can't be arsed with finding a silver one...

Almost Christmas Crackered by a denizen of venison...

Back from the Lakes and sportive number four of the year, the Cumbrian Christmas Cracker, a gently rolling 65 miles of festive Lakeland scenery starting from Grasmere, out to Cartmel on the coast via Coniston and its rather substantial duck pond then back through Grisedale Forest. It was cold. Very cold. Cold to the point where the route was neutered to avoid sheet ice, but actually the mix of gently rolling roads and relaxed friends was lovely and just right for appreciating some stunning views, especially across the Lake near Brantwood.

 Pre-Cracker frostiness, brrrr... - pic by Harsh

A few things I've learned this year: how to look sideways and still ride in a vaguely straight line; that I don't have to try and beat people up every climb; that there are always lots of people much, much faster than I am, including this time, a fella in full GB kit on a pukka time trial bike; that following people's wheels in a sportive is a bit like juggling a live hand grenade; and one more from yesterday.

After tea and cake at Cartmel, the three of us rolled gently back towards the Christmas pudding pausing only to lose a pair of ruthlessly-competitive roadies from our wheels - easily done, we simply slowed down and let them ride off - and really just enjoying the ride and the views.

Skimming along towards Clappersgate, someone shouted something at me as I went past him, that I didn't quite catch because at the same moment, I spotted a deer running flat out parallel to the road on the other side of the dry stone wall to my right. First thoughts were what a beautiful animal it was and gawping at the speed and flow of its movement. Then reality kicked in and I realised that something had spooked it and walls aren't much of a barrier to a frantic deer.

Gently on the brakes as the deer turned hard left, bounded over the wall, crossed the road without slowing one iota, took the top off the left-hand wall leaving a portable TV-sized rock on the ground and slammed itself through the gap between the top wire and the gridded part of a wire livestock fence before disappearing across a field.

Ten metres in front of me, maybe less.

All so fast and so slow at the same time that it seemed unreal and unfrightening in the instant. It was only afterwards, pedalling back towards Grasmere that the pointless thoughts about what might have happened kicked in. And the concern for the deer which must have hurt itself hammering into that wall.

Lesson? Deer don't conform to the Green Cross Code. Lesson two: Christmas pudding with custard beats chocolate milk shakes in the comfort recovery stakes every time.

A really mellow, lovely day in a beautiful place with good people. Thanks guys. And thank you Mog.

Sportive Trinity

Just done the Tour of the Peak, well, kind of half done it, seeing as by the time I got to the point where the 100-mile and 64-mile routes diverged, I was about as dry as a jellyfish and I just didn't see the point of dragging my dripping tentacles over Strines, Holme Moss and Chunal. So discretion was the best part of riding and I took the easy option.

It's the third big sportive I've done this year after the Whitton - ace and gritty northern - and the Dragon Ride, less ace and with pink accoutrements and the third one I've drifted into with someone else's unwanted place. I phoned Keith afterwards to tell him how he'd done.

Was it lovely? Well, in a wet, windy, slippy sort of way. And I mean slippy, I saw two ambulance-attended stacks, one a mass pile up on a greasy descent, the other a solo effort. Just hoping everyone involved got off lightly, lots of treacherous wet leaves and polished asphalt strewn across the course.

The funny thing is, a year ago I'd have been comedy indignant at the idea of doing an organised mass road ride. What? Me? With a load of roadies. En masse? Hmmm... yes mate, you. But actually the Fred Whitton sort of converted me. There's a real epicness to the Whitton, it's partly the looming prospect of hitting the Hardknott with 90 hilly miles in your legs, partly the ever-present drama of Lakeland scenery and partly a funny, indefinable, northern grimness that seems to colour the whole event.

It's hard. And honest. And beautiful. You can't argue with that.

Thinking about it today and I realised just how much I've improved on a road bike in six short months. Not my doing, I owe it to the long-suffering people I've ridden with, who gently explained why Camelbaks are rubbish on the road. How to overtake people - never look back - and how many bottle cages are allowed.

And the end result? I can ride along and actually look around me without veering helplessly across the road. Gentle gusts of wind no longer scare the beejayzus out of me. I can get on the drops, if not seamlessly, then at least quite smoothly. And I only ever wore those stripey Sugoi arm warmers once...

I'm never going to be effortlessly smooth and fast. And I'm never, ever, going to shave my legs. And I doubt anyone will ever use my name and 'graceful' in the same sentence, when referring to road riding. But I'm a lot better than I was and, more importantly, I ride on the road because I love it. Simple.

And the Tour of the Peak? It would be a lovely ride on a sunny warm day. Or even a dry, crisp, winter's one. Today was neither. But there was a moment dropping down towards Whaley Bridge with the road heaped in russet orange, fallen leaves and the sunlight grated by trees, that made it all worth the wet and the windchill and the sideways-slithering tyres.

Really. Quite. Special.

I'm not riding with you on that monstrosity...

'I'm not riding with you on that monstrosity...'

Death sentence. For my budget Giant OCR2. I swear you could see it flinch.

Monstrosity? Cheap, yep. Harsh, yep. Fun to ride, er, nope. Not at all. In truth the OCR took to the Peak's pock-marked tarmac like a duck takes to, well, full contact karate. It hated the place.

On southern Spain's Botox-smooth, sinuous limestone roads, none of this mattered. But over here it felt like a low rent John Travolta clone trying to strut its stuff in a northern working men's club. More importantly, I hated riding it. Every other bike I own, well, I feel something for - warmth, fondness, whatever - but the Giant was a harsh, badly-fitting, wrist-cracking trial of patience at best and just painful at worst.

So it found itself on bike death row. Waiting. For something else to arrive and replace it.

And something turned out to be Planet X - Lynskey - Ti Race thing, a beautifully welded collection of matt-brushed titanium tubes recommended by a mate who ought to know as something that would have soul and smoothness in one. Speccing it was a step into the unknown, but it was built up with love and meandering procrastination - Campag Chorus 11 - 'it has to be Campag' - in a Spinal Tap stylee, FSA compact drops, USE finishing kit (free), Ksyrium SLs and, eventually, with help, gorgeous bar-tape from the lovely minxgirl.com. And no, not pink or with flowers on.

The best thing I ever bought.

There's a warmth to it that's hard to describe. It's supple, arrow fast, sharp but forgiving and next to a mountain bike, feels like a jet plane rushing down the runway for take-off. And every time I ride it, it makes me smile, which I never thought a road bike could or would.

Why? The speed. The liberating minimalism of riding without a pack. Sharp, synapse-shredding downs and leg-burning climbs and, above all, two other things: the sheer ability to cover distance at speed, 'we're where?' and being able to ride along chatting away with friends in a way you just can't on a mountain bike. Just lovely.

And it all started with what I thought was pure bike snobbery. And wasn't.

I'm never going to be a lithe, shaven-legged, graceful Tour wannabe. And I'll probably always feel a bit like a mountain biker on a road bike and look like one - no, there's no peak on my helmet - and I'm never going to be properly fast, too far gone and too slow for that, but who cares? Snap, click, go, pedal, straight out of the door. Every time, any time.

Road bikes are lovely. And lovely road bikes are the icing on the cake.