19th December 2009

Got up and instantly froze!

Attempted to warm up in the shower, Spent 15 minutes putting on all of the cycling layers, then wombled downstairs and sorted the fire out.

After the fire was fettled, I assembled the Sherry Cherry Trifle and put it in the front porch to chill.

Then I thought it would be a good idea to retrieve the bike from the shed, the lock was frozen!
after de-icing the lock with some boiling water I then found that the chain, gears, crank, etc, etc ,etc were all frozen :-( So I stood the bike in front of the fire to thaw :-)


After 30 minutes or so the bike appeared to have thawed, I then moved it outside and lubed the chain. (I will clean the bike properly after tomorrows ride).

After donning another couple of layers I headed of to the Chippenham Cemetery for the ChainGang, (I must be mad Lyneham had the temperature at below -4).

0900		-4.9 °C	WNW	7 mph		30 km	1016 hPa, Falling
1000		-3.4 °C	WSW	6 mph		30 km	1015 hPa, Falling
1100		-1.8 °C	W	7 mph		30 km	1014 hPa, Falling
1200		-0.6 °C	WSW	7 mph		30 km	1013 hPa, Falling

I was surprised to find a few peep's already waiting, by 9:30 there was about 10 of us all raring to go! (There are more Mad people in the world than me!!!)

There were a few very icy patches on the route, but thankfully nobody took a spill on the ice :-) That didn't happen until the end of the ride at Corsham, we were all chatting and some stopped at a Zebra Crossing, some didn't and some didn't see! poor old Dylan went down and I just managed to stay upright. There was no damage and no unjuries thankfully.

I took a nice easy ride back to Chippenham with Dylan, then carried on home...

The Garmin had the ride as 40.7 miles in 2 hours 19 minutes with an average speed of 17.6 mph, route here...