Bushed again.

Did a couple of hours through the Chilterns this morning, starting from the wonderfully named "Christmas common".

While I was putting the bike in the car it was just dusting with snow. Once there it was quite bitter, and by the end of the first descent fingers, toes and forehead were aching with cold. Unfortunately most of the mud was still liquid (another night like that and it won't be). However where it hit the bike it froze solid, resulting in my gears refusing to shift up, due to the mud built up layer on layer on the gear cable.

The up side of this was that putting the bike in the car meant I didn't get too dirty :-) The downside was that it melted and fell off into the back of the car :-(

It was a good ride, with 9 of us out there. At this time of year there's always plenty of camaraderie, and when there was a puncture people would stop to help. We also didn't have any crashes this time, as conditions generally made going too fast difficult. Some places were good though. The section affectionately known as "the roots of doom" was really quite grippy, and was much more "roots of mild inconvenience".

Most amazing was the guy (whose name I forget) that did the ride in shorts and short socks! A true hard man, despite being about 8 to 10 years older than me.