Tell us about your weekend ride

Very impressive stuff - was it mainly on packed snow and icy roads? You did well to keep warm enough.

Incorrect spelling of 'vicious'. I'm a little embarrassed.

I've got used to dressing in the appropriate garb. Didn't feel anywhere near as cold as the -7 degree ride I did in Hertfordshire a few weeks back, which was my last ride on a road bike, therefore massive extra windchill due to speed.

Like Sean said, we dealt with a huge variety of road conditions.

• 7.30am up Queensbridge Rd was a weird kind of ribbed ice, plus black ice.
  
• Lea Bridge Rd was horrible grey powdery 'snush', plus some black ice.
  
• The Epping Road gradually morphed from white 'snush' (or is it 'slow'?) and ice into hard pack snow, which was how it stayed through the forest.
  
• The lanes were a bit of everything, including some deeper fresh snow, and frozen puddles that cracked or semi-cracked as we crossed them; crusty refrozen ruts, hardpack on tarmac, hardpack on ice, etc, etc…
  
• Where the cars were abandoned, under tree cover, it was a deep and dark brown sludgey syrup - and by the time we were heading back into town, there was a dark grey version of this being thrown up in tidal waves by the traffic.
  
  

Some traffic was very friendly, and their was a sense of camaraderie in the lanes, irrespective of transport method; but there were loads of Range Rovers too, and the drivers were consistently belligerent in their attitude towards shared space and iffy conditions. The only negative to the ride.