Comfort over speed!

Had a great ride to the coalface on Miranda this morning. Much that I love my other bikes there is something to be said about a nice big comfy sprung saddle, Schwalbe Big Apple Balloon tyres and a steel frame to take the bumps out of the road. It I could make a comparison, I would say that while cycling on Miranda you feel you may be sitting on an armchair whereas on my other two steeds it is more like sitting on the unpadded wooden chair that gets brought out for the extra guest at Christmas. Of course it takes twice as long to get to where you are going but at least you arrive in comfort.

Got word today that my neoprene overshoes and new gloves were dispatched today. Hopefully these will do the trick and ward off some of the coldness from my hands and feet on our planned run this Saturday. I don't think that I have ever felt cold like that in my life. I reckon it was probably about -2 when we set out and if you factor wind chill factor then it would have been much colder. I was speaking with our resident cycle expert yesterday who told me that a good trick is to put a poly bag over the shoes before putting on the overshoes. I think that if we are going to continue these runs on a weekly basis, we are always going to be suffering from the cold because even in the height of summer, it will still be bitterly cold at 5am when we start out. Of course it will heat up a bit but I don't foresee short sleeves and shorts on these runs.