“What’s in that tiny, cute envelope?” asked my wife when I brought up the post.

“I’ve no idea, it is addressed to you”

“Hmmm, I can’t think what that could be” she muttered as she wandered off to open it in the other room.

After a few seconds she burst out laughing and sheepishly wandered back into the kitchen and asked me to hold out my hands and close my eyes.

It is my birthday coming up soon, so I assumed this was an early gift.

She dropped something into my cupped palms, and I opened my eyes to see these.

Is it going to be warm today? asks my wife

No idea, let me check … erm, well, cold this morning and then it seems to get warm later. But really, who knows?

It was supposed to be warm yesterday, but the wind was freezing.

I know.

So, what should I wear to ride?

Don’t ask me that, you know what I’ll say …

I should dress warm then?

!!!

<Annoying Electronic Beep>

Black screen

<Annoying Electronic Beep>

Black screen

 “Erm, aren’t you going to do something about that?” asks my wife pointedly.

“Yeah, just trying to re-set it now”

<Annoying Electronic Beep>

Black screen

“How is it going?”

“Hold down power button for ten seconds and your Garmin will reset” I mutter to myself

“What?”

“Nothing, just trying to sort this out” I reply.

One, two, three, four …

One, two, three, four …

One, two, three, four …

One, two, three, four …

Just keep the rhythm.

Keep them turning.

Keep moving.

We’re sweating.

Don’t let the tempo drop.

Stay close.

It’s wintertime.

Which means going out for a ride entails putting on LOT of clothes.

It sometimes feels like getting dressed takes more time than the actual ride.

And here in Switzerland our apartments tend to be quite well heated. So you really have to time putting on the final items (thermal jacket, gloves, hat, booties) so you don’t end up overheating before even getting out the door.

The hashtag outsideisfree currently has over 6 .4 million posts on Instagram.

The vast majority of images posted there (I admit I haven’t looked at all 6.4 million) show healthy, athletic usually very attractive looking cyclists or hikers nicely posed in the great outdoors with their expensive looking kit.

I personally have also used the hashtag in the past on some of my posts without really thinking about it, but I have recently been wondering whether it is the right thing to be saying.

Because this vision of “outside” as shown in most of these posts isn’t actually free.

If I just pedal hard and ollie high enough …

… I think I can clear the road …

… And then put the power down again to catch him …

… ok, here it comes …

… 3, 2,1 jump! …

… … …

SLAM!

I don’t make new year’s resolutions; I don’t think I have ever really made a serious one.

But that’s not to say there isn’t a benefit to looking at ourselves and what we want to achieve at the turn of the year.

Pretty much all of us will have had some time away from work, a chance to clear our minds and hopefully relax.

The holiday break can also be a good time to take time off from the bike – where I live in Switzerland it ends up being a choice between skiing, or indoor cycling.

I use this time to think about the year ahead, but I don’t think making a resolution that is going to be hard to keep is such a great idea.

One of the first things you learn when starting to ride a bike is to look where you’re going.

Look ahead!

Keep your eyes fixed on where you want to go!

Because if you don’t you might fall.

It was echoed from Salève, the Juras, and the Alps of Savoy; vivid flashes of lightning dazzled my eyes, illuminating the lake, making it appear like a vast sheet of fire; then for an instant everything seemed of a pitchy darkness, until the eye recovered itself from the preceding flash.

I thought of pursuing the devil; but it would have been in vain, for another flash discovered him to me hanging among the rocks of the nearly perpendicular ascent of Mont Saleve, a hill that bounds Plainpalais on the south.

Who could arrest a creature capable of scaling the overhanging sides of Mont Saleve?

Oh god, is it worth it?

I wake up before my alarm. It must be something to do with knowing you need to get up earlier than normal that makes your body anticipate the alarm by a few minutes. At least it avoids waking up my wife at such an ungodly hour.

I unplug the phone, make sure I turn off the alarm, and creep out of the bedroom.

My clothes are lying on the floor by the front door as usual, and I always debate whether putting them on first before having breakfast is better, or vice versa. I typically tend to wait until after I’ve managed to cram some food into my mouth before cramming myself into my lycra.

You’ll need to get yourself a turbo

No, I won’t be doing that, it’s far too boring – I’ll just keep riding outside through the winter

And as the famous boxing saying goes “everyone has a plan … until they fall off their bike on some icy corner”.

We have a running joke in our household concerning rock formations, and how interesting they are to adults, and how massively boring they are for children.

So whenever I’m riding along somewhere new, or different from where I normally ride, and I see some incredible glacial striation, or sedimentary rock layers, I have to think twice before expressing my wonder.

Thankfully most people I’m riding with are older than my children and either join in with my wonder, or at least don’t flat out tell me that I’m a boring old man.

I’ve got no idea where we are!

Me neither, but I think we’re on the right track

Do you think we’re lost?

Sometime the best rides have a moment where they feel like the worst rides.

And getting lost can often be one of those moments.

I’m now 52.

Back in July I was 89.

At my lowest this year I was 26.

If I don’t do anything else by mid-November, I’ll be 37.

Any guesses what I’m talking about?

This is totally crazy …

It was on the third climb of Mont Ventoux that I really started to understand the naming of the club I was trying to join. We were on the ‘easiest’ route up the Giant of Provence from Sault. It was by now approaching the 9th hour since we left Malaucene early that morning. It being June it was also approaching 35 deg Celsius and we’d already ridden 115km and climbed 3,500m.

“Scheisse!”

Another rider goes down right in front of me.

“Alles OK?”

“Ja Ja. Alles Gut. Ein bisschen rutschig”

“Ein bisschen rutschig” is understating the conditions somewhat, especially when you’ve still got your summer gravel tyres on your bike. That was mistake number one.