Snow!

My local MTB club did it's pub ride last night. 11 of us showed. We are out in Buckinghamshire. It had been wet but by the time we met at the first pub it was freezing, the roads were a sheet of ice. Not a gritter to be seen predictably.

The snow really came down while we were in pub number two. I switched to whisky: you need to plan these things. We were on hilly country lanes and on the way to pub number 3 we came across several stranded vehicles or cars trying pathetically to get up the hills. It was hugely rewarding just pedalling past them, seeing their worried faces through the misty windows as their tyres shreaked in the ice.

We left the last pub at gone 11 and cycled the eight or so miles back along the same country lanes. Most of the cars had got out but a poor sod in his Ocado van, on his way back to Hertford was stuck good and was never going to get out. There was nothing we could do to help.

Pedalling in the snow is great. We turned off the lights and crunched through the muted countryside, heavy snow thankfully falling in a following wind, pushing up some of the steeper icy hills, but riding all the flats and downs quite easily. When we went past it, the M40 was down to two slow lanes. I hear they've closed it for three junctions near us.

I eventually got home at 1AM. Unscathed. I've never had so much fun on a bike.