Littlest things

I've started getting used to not being on the bike, and indeed to being the fastest rider on the sofa.  It's not a bad sofa.  I idled around the roads of Coniston Water on the mountain bike on Sunday accepting a mid ride change of plan otherwise known as a warning twinge from my knee which suggested off road might not be for me that day.  It was very vaguely satisfying, particularly when I was joined for riding chat by a local lady on her road bike.  It very nearly felt social.

Such has been my self imposed plight on the bike that I've felt too slow, too meandering and too tied to the flat to possibly have company out there.  It's been nice, doing my own thing, but Sunday was also nice, and I was actually grateful for the company.  I haven't been in the saddle since Sunday and haven't felt the normal no exercise trapped feeling either which is really odd for me. Have I somehow adjusted to a more sedentary state. Is this how it all starts?  Will I own slippers next, and perhaps gain a familiarity with my DVD player or subscribe to an enhanced Sky entertainments package?  Who knows?

To counteract this feeling, I read something today which sparked my thinking.  Just one of those brief platitudes which appear on facebook from time to time.  Something along the lines of when you ask  yourself what's the point, why are you doing this, just remember gently what made you want to do it in the first place.  I still remember the mountain bike ride at Llandegla on the hire bike with a group of friends who then seemed disproportionately fast.  I don't think I'd ever ridden anywhere other than the road and the odd gravelled surface before then.  I'd never swooped downhill over humps and round berms.  I'd never climbed up fireroads or rocky stones.  I'd never ridden on anything narrower than a pavement.  I was permanently at the back.  I went back again, and hired a bike again.  Then I bought one for a couple of hundred quid from Decathlon and spent a year with it.  I upgraded.  I was hooked.  The fast friends slowed down with time too.  Cannot really believe how much ...