Blaenau Ffestiniog has a challenging aesthetic. Dwarfed by scarred mountains, cut deeply by a hundred years of slate mining, and diminished by the slow decline and eventual cessation of all such activities.

Many times we’ve skirted its grim and grimey centre on our way to softerlandscapes unscathed by such obvious commercial activity. Most of those days the buildings appear huddled together against the incessant rain and wind. There’s little to stay the traveller looking for the wide open spaces in these wild, Welsh mountains.

Rather than give up like so many tragic mining towns, the communityhad a good look round a the slate heaps and vertical geography before deciding ‘you know what, we should have a crack at that tourism thing‘. With some success.

Hidden between the monster zip lines and underground experiences liesAntur Stiniog – five trails cut sensitively into an already battered landscape and served by a super-efficient uplift service. This is not Bike Park Wales snaking between unharvested forestry and gentler landscape – no here we findno nonsense ribbons of rock the making best use of the localgeology augmented with all sorts of extra stuff to test the stoutest of defences.

Another birthday that most men of my age would spend stiff inunwelcome new jumpers stuck between unwanted extended family instead packed Matt’s van with what – on first sight – appeared to be an explosion in a plastics factory. Full face helmets of dubious vintage rolled over body armour apparently last deployedduring a vigorous strugglewith a tiger.

Three hours later we met up with an old mate of mine who being a bit more organised has already managed a couple of runs: ‘Blue? Fine, good fun. Red? Shit myself‘. Right then, we’ll start on the blue, then but first a comedy assemblage of riders and clothing putting me in mind of Cluedo: ‘Ah Yes, Mr James Upside Down in the Van being strangled with a Helmet Strap‘. Nick looked on mildly bemused but because he’s known me a long time not entirely surprised.

Eventually we rocked up to the windy summit before arsing about a while longer to ensure the proper riders wouldn’t be held up by #ukminceontour* First run is always much compromised by stiff muscles, unfamiliar trails, a touch or more of fear and mostly not wanting to mong oneself on the first run of at least ten. The picture up there is about one minute in. I’m the one in the middle looking as if he’s decided to have a poo. Taken me years to perfect that stance.

With only five trails and great signage it’s impossible to get lost. We got lost. Diverting accidentally to a red trail that ensured proper technique and commitment was pretty much hard wired into our minds as gradients steepened and rocks embigened**

Arriving shaken and a bit stirred back at the uplift truck, we were immediately whisked back to the top in less than five minutes. More runs increased confidence that a) there was nothing here that was trying to kill us and b) these bikes really are quite amazing aren’t they? How can a chassis that’ll happily flatter you on some all day yomp across local trails be quite so bloody awesome on stuff that is mostly occupied by downhill bikes, mirrored visors and riders who can apparently reach low earth orbit off every lip?

Elven magic clearly. Even so by lunchtime we’d progressed to the reds and loved the technical difficultysplit between some reasonably committing drops and fast open sections where the bike would just float above the rock crust. Assuming you could stay off the brakes. I had a brilliant run chasing Rex for the best part of three minutes – letting the bike run, trusting mytechnique when the going got steep and the bike when attempting to land on downslopes out of your eyeline. Then I got cocky and crashed. Wasn’t a big one but bruised the only part of me not fully armoured up.

BPW you can ride on a hardtail with minimum protection if that’s your thing. Not here, I was happy with the heavy breathing full face and neck to toe plastic reinforcement. The consequences of getting it wrong had smashed limbs writ large. As we found out after a quick lunch of carbs and liquid. This not riding uphill is tiring stuff.

“Black then. Shall We?‘ Three of us in the affirmative withthe group splintered bypunctures, tiredness and an understandable reticence to risk trails we barely dared even look down a few hours earlier. Cez and Rex set off with the kind of confidence I dream of leaving me properly positioned as tail gunner. I saw Cez disappear down the first insanely steep step down with barely a pause. One secondhe was there, the next gone, disappeared some 30 feet below. Oh fuck. Like that is it?

It was. Rex was next and his heroic commitment wasn’t matched by similarsuccess. His bike kicked out on the rock step half way down propelling him upwards and backwards in the kind of rotational parabola normally suffixed with ‘and Pike to finish’.

No water just rock. Rex hit it hard and tumbled down the slope in a confusion of arms and legs. ShitShitShitShit that doesn’t look good ‘Rex, you okay mate?‘ I shouted hard braked from the top. A second passed. Then ‘Yeah all good, landed on my backpack, not sure about my spleen tho‘

This was an ongoing joke from my Slovenia bike park experience. So thankfullyhe was both alive and lucid. I picked an easier line down to find Rex back on his bike, grin firmly back in place. Legend. I’d have been calling for the helicopter. He then sent me out first – being understandably a bit reticent to hit obstacles blind – but the rest of the trail harvested fewer demons.

We found Matt and Mike fixing punctures and the not very famous five made it to the bottom without further incident. I rode a couple more times and few tougher lines including the ‘chicken line‘ avoidingthe terrifying double black crux move. Even that line had me mainlining my inner chicken. Happy to get down that unscathed. Style? Speed? Technique? Er, no. More an internal telling off for following Cez off anything blind.***

I quit about then. Physically all was good, but mentally totally frazzled. Ian and I shared a coffee while the rest of the boys hit the uplift truck for a couple more runs. Fast ones as well by all accounts. Fine by me, I was happy to mirrorthe same physical approximation as earlier in the day, and happier still Rex hadn’t done himself some serious injury.

We said our goodbyes to Nick, got back in the van, got back to Ross a few hours later and got pissed because a birthday is as good excuse as any. Forty Eight years old and riding black graded downhill trails with my friends .

That’s not a birthday, that’s a blessing.

* I speak for myself here. And maybe one or two others. As ever I positioned myself as ‘rear gunner’ but had to fight for that station!

** what do you mean that’s not a word?

*** Appropriate noun. Had my eyes closed.

Years ago when I had a proper job, a very earnest young engineer rushed into my office to explain how light – the very light coming through mywindow – could be multiplexed, sliced, diced and repurposed for transporting ones and zeros at unfathomable speeds. Speed of light – obvious to him maybe, I was pretty much winging it from ‘hellomynameiskeithandhthisisveryimportant‘.

Mountain biking appears to be going to same way. We’re splitting niches at an atomic level, so no sooner have my most recent two purchases been deemed heritage then even the marketingly trumpeted perfect wheel size isdenuded by something even more magnificent apparently. Suddenly Wave Division Multiplexing doesn’t seem quite so insane*

I’m thinking of this endless carving of phantom niches as the physical manifestation of ‘Peak Beard‘. I appreciate people have things to sell but you’re really starting to piss the rest of us off. Oh the new standard means a new frame does it? And new forks to go with it? Will my 2 week old wheels fit? No, thought not.

I grumbled my way into the shedofdreams the other day looking for reassurance that my pantheon of mountain bikes still represented something worthwhile. And in the manner of any man who has a sock drawer, I took to harvesting the oily contents of my extensive spares holding to create space for the detritus washed up invarious short term receptacles.

Failing to solve the equation of loads-of-crap – available space > 0, instead I was struck by the righteous vision that rather than toss decent parts into a dark corner, I could instead hang them off something a little more aesthetically pleasing. A quick inventory ratified my thinking; transmission, wheels, bars, stems and brakes framed a single missing component.

That’s what the Internet is for. The first thing distracting me was the colour. RootBeer Trek call it, but for a child of the seventies, it’s clearly a homage to the motoring icon that wasthe Vauxhall Chevette. The second thing was the price which – while being more than a small multiplier of a cardboard box – was intriguingly cheap.

Emails ricoshayed this way covering condition, use, issues and inside leg measurement of the current rider. While slightly odd to request personal dimensions from someone you’ve never met, this – for a man whose leg growth was first lost and then found in his arms – is vital. Large frames invite an interference fit between soft love spuds and hard aluminium. It’s a mistake you make only once.

A brief meeting ata windswept motorway services saw yet another bike anointed in the shedofdreams. Bit of spit and polish and the turd brown sparkled just a little. No getting away from the lack of rear suspension tho. My hard stance on no more hardtails has beentriggered by an increasingly soft back.

Riding is still pretty much okay. The next morninghowever is not. Standing up, my lower back gets up about half a second later and my knees sometime in the afternoon. There are volumes of TLDR shit written about how riding hardtails makes you a better rider; connects you to the trail; keeps it real, etc, etc.

Yeah whatever, get a shave beardie. Still before I could ride and hate it, first it had to be built. All the easy stuff I hammered together before handing it over to Matt breezily explaining the cranks didn’t really fit and there were big holes in the frames where I assumed some cables may need to be inserted.

I provided beer and an extra pair of eyes as stuff pinged to the four corners of Matt’s amusingly chaotic garage. Soon we had a bike that mostly worked and a rider who still wasn’t quite sure why he’d bought it.

Maybe I’m sticking it to the marketing man. The latest version of the Stache (that’s what it’s called. No I’ve no idea either) is dripping with new standards and irrelevance. Mine from all the way back to 2011 is none of those things. It’s two triangles, some funky hydroforming and a load of second hand parts.

It’s far better to look at than a box of spares. It’s conveniently the colour of winter. It may get ridden more than the other 29er hung on the wall, and ignored since the Aeris turned up. If not it’ll bolster my real mountain bike credentials. It’s like Alfa’s for petrolheads, every proper rider must owna hardtail.

Even if he or she doesn’t ride it. Looks better than a battered box though doesn’t it?

* it is a real thing. Incredibly important in our digital world. Cornerstone of an exploding digital age. It also allows those on the near end of the autistic spectrum to play with lasers. I’ll leave you to decide if this is a good trade-off.

How do you catalogue a ride? Is it simply plotting an intersect of time and distance on an XY scale? That feels like a flat representation* – because then how should climbing be represented? Weather conditions? Trail state? What’s going on under your wheels and inside your head? Maybe it’s all about Strava and beating all those people who don’t know you, and care less how fast you are?

Maybe it isn’t. We need to add some richness to the canon of riding experience. And I’m here to help introducing a new metric covering all those things and more**. it’s a simple base ten scale bounded by a furtherten integers encompassing many characteristicswhichcan be rated, and a few more that are somewhat more qualitative. Ladies and Gentlemen I proudly introduce ‘The Doran Scale’

Named after my riding mate Matt whose surname is often suffixed with ‘Death March’ as pleasant enough rides descend into benightment, brokenness and a belief you may not see tomorrow. That might be a local ride which starts at 9am with theinnocent question if one is packing lights, or some ridiculously optimistic plan to summit half of South Wales in Midwinter having started late because someone fancied a coffee.

There are many, many examples where a little part of me cravenly promises to stop being quite so stupid if you’ll get me off this mountain, uninjured, just one more time. At least one more where, after a day of slithering darkly though midwinter sludge,we foundourselves at twilight some 10 kilometres from home with a single light between us. On the downside that was a rear light, on the upside there was a lot more light in the nearby pub so we went there instead and kind of winged it from there.

All of these rate about an 8 on the Doran scale. I’ve yet to encounter a 10 because a) ambulances would be called and b) the collateral damage would be in the vein of ‘No sorry Dave didn’t make it‘. If we’re not completely lost under sideways hail on a big hill somewhere far from home with a major mechanical and the closing in of the night, it’s barely more than a 5. Special consideration can be given for a new fusion sport of via ferreta and mountain biking as difficult to carry wheeled objects are passed hand to hand across treacherous slopes.

Which reminds me of the Black Mountains questwe attemptedlast year in early Feb after it’d rained for the previousmonth. It didn’t rain on the day we rodeit because, somewhat predictably, it was already snowing. Poor old Steve hadn’t yet been inducted into the Doran scale and only oncewe’d bog snorkelled for 30 kilometres did he get the chance to hurt himself properly while falling off the side of Y Das. Slippery? Put it in a suit you could call it David Cameron. Yes, it really was that slimy.

I rescued him through the simple process of repurposing my bike as a rope and throwing it downhill while firmlygraspingthe otherend. Winching him back took a while but eventually we reacquainted ourself with solid if soggy ground. ‘Welcome‘ I said, ‘this is about an 7.‘

This time round the ground was quite a lot drier. The temperatures though had dropped from early Spring highs to an alarm-bonging 3 degrees, the sky and ground met in grey clamping cloud,unshifted by a bitter wind. A solid 5 with potential for a 6 or even a 7 as two new navigational gambits were in play***.

The first saw us rather boringly climbing a long fire road with absolutely no bike carrying, chopping down of fallen trees or multiple U-Turns. At the top, the sun shone briefly on a dusty landscape full of possibilities but not puddles. Very odd indeed. It was like a rubbishb-movie when the hero exclaims ‘it’s too quiet’ seconds before the thing eats him.

My box-freshbike was lovely though the medium of ‘new purchaseglasses’ but still didn’t feel quite right – easily diagnosed by those who ignored my fantasy that I was about 10 stone fully kitted up. A bit more air lead to a bit more air and quite a bit less clattering of pedals, as we dropped through a descent that, last year, had seen me picking an increasingly desperate line ending somewhere miles from the actual trail. Slick Mud will do that.

The rest of the ride was a combination of marvelling at real dust in Wales in April and shivering whenever we turned into wind. The fast bits were really very, very fast indeed while the long, slow climbs took about the same time as ever. Exceptwithout having to float your bike between the boggy sections.

I was concerned that with all that available light and superb conditions under tyre, we’d barely register on the Doran scale. I mean no one required medical treatment for hypothermia,nor suffering some ride ending mechanical to zip tie our way around. Luckily we were saved from an easy ride bya second navigational triumph dragging tired bodies up a peat ridge infested withwheel eating divots.

Even dry as it was, this route sucked the joy out of pretty much everything and after twenty minutes of it, I was found sheltering from the wind muttering ‘5, it’s a bloody 5 and I bet they’re suggesting we rideto that stupid summit miles up there. Gonna be a 6, maybe a 7. Best check my affairs are in order‘.

The needle fellback into the amber though after a group decision to drop off the ridge onto grassy singletrack thankfully heading away from what I now thought of as Mordor, and into a friendlylooking little wood a few hundred feet above the car park.

A few hundred feet with a few thousand wet rocks strewn threateningly in a moist riverbed. Water being what it is, followed the fall line as did we with varying levels of success. I dabbed with both feet and nearly my head,all the timeupgrading the ride to a solid 6 as bodies were pinged from side to side bouncing off the steep ravine edge.

We hit a fire-road and immediately selected a trail home which lacked the water but doubled up the rocks and gradient. The great thing about six inch travel bikes is they still work when you’re a) tired b) scared and c) riding them with your eyes shut tight.

I arrived at the cars shaken and quite a bit stirred, but still limbed with a full set of trembling appendages. The talk turned to our next epic which is a five man ascent on the summit of Cadair Idris this weekend. Checking the rocky terrain, weather forecast, potential for navigational confusion and a level of exposure suggesting blinkers might be required, I think we can safely say the Doran Scale might need to go all the way to 11.

I might be back next week. If not, you’ve made a happy man very old.

* clearly a concept stolen from the quite brilliant Dead Poets Society. This bit specificallyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjHORRHXtyI

** except for the Strava thing. Really? Get over yourself.

*** Thankfully none of them had anything to do with me. I brought a map and instantly handed it over to a responsible adult.

Oooh Spring. About blooming time. Evidence was all around as we passed plants bursting into flower, trees risking a little leaf and stretchy t-shirted fat people wearing sports sunglasses while contesting narrow byways*

It’s been a week of glorious sunshine since our last slippy ride out here. The four hardy perennials gathered early – except in my case late, frustrated**, post too many beers, and a bit chilly riding into a season switched back from a phony summer.

Progress was therefore understandably sluggish with the moaning one lugging a crippling heavy hangover in his backpack, and demanding relief for two spin classes and three rides in the previous four days. Sympathy was not forthcoming.

This self inflected load crushed my spirit as we ambled up the bitch*** blissfully out of the chilling wind, but deep into ‘I may soon be messily sick‘ territory. Sometime much later a confused looking man rocking some 90s rigid bike action wondered if a responsible adult might point him in a direction of home.

I wandered off in case my involvement would direct the blameless individual to Reykjavik or the moon, and instead practically experimented the theory that ‘Sweat is just Butty Bach leaving the body‘, which trumps Lance who intimated Fear but really meant EPO.

Eventually the up stopped triggering a game of ‘A tree? there? I wasn’t expecting that’ as the drunken delay between my optic nerve and steering muscles extended beyond a second. I slavishly followed Haydn’s rear wheel in the hope a) he knew where he was going and b) if he did crash I’d have something a bit more squashy than bark to crash into.

Even in a state of physical and mental brokeness, the perfect trail conditions couldn’t pass me by. No, it’s was more about getting right in there, feeling at least one half of the bike/rider combo come alive, and hanging on to those faster people who’d decided internal poisoning wasn’t on their Friday night agenda.

There is very little in life which can mirror the joy of letting the bike run. What in winter are stiff, steppy individual impacts on a phalanx of steep roots become a glorious unbroken dart between apexes, with the bike matching the terrain and arms and legs beating to a similar rhythm.

This is the physical representation of that mythical quest for flow. It’s committing to everything learned riding around in circles for twenty years, whilst at the same time dumping the doubt, fear and anxiety cataloguing your many failures.

It’s a belief system of sorts. The tyres will grip, the suspension will control, the brakes will stop, the big lump of vegetable on top can be brave. Believe and all shall be well.

It kind of works but nothing is infinite, especially grip as my rear tyre spat traction on a fast turn. For a second I thought I’d caught it, but this thrill was short lived as a stout tree hove into view. Making the split second decision to abandon the bike saved me from a crunching arboreal halt. The bike caught it with a tyre as I tumbledpast giving a relieved wave.

No damage done and the quiet gratification I’d pushed the rear tyre so hard, it actually broke traction. Could have been rubbish technique, could have been proper commitment. Probably somewhere between the two, but it matters not as it is a story to tell without an injury to show.

The great thing about having average ability but unlimited ambition is it always feels that you can improve. So when occasionally flying perfectly over a jump – fully committed but still in control, or properly driving your hips into a turn and flinging the bike through an accelerating apex, this feels like real progression. Then you case a smaller jump, drop into a rut and almost stall into the next corner – so dropping you back to the baseline of about average.

No problem with that at all. I’m probably way past whatever represented the high water mark of my mediocre ability. But I am nowhere near close to finding the edge where the simple fun of riding mountain bikes with like-minded people feels like something I no longer want to do.

And on that note, it’s worth asking myself why I’ve bothered to buy a new bike. The Pyga is more than enough for my ability and ambition. It’s also a whole lot better than that. For a few brief seconds yesterday I sensed how brilliant it really is, and how much more it could give under the hands and feet of a proper rider.

I’ll never be that rider. But for the next few months, I’m going to have a lot of fun pretending I might be.

* route between the pub door and the bar. These vital commercial arteries must be kept clear!

** lost my wallet. Spent 20 minutes looking for it. The first 10 carefully retracing my steps, the second angrily throwing random stuff in the air and glaring at the non-walletless hole below. Arriving home, I found it in about 30 seconds. Alcohol is bad for you kids.

*** There is a similarly horrible climb on the other side of the valley which is – somewhat predictably – named ‘the bastard’

Most of us live little lives. This is not a bad thing, especially when buttressed with the ongoing delusion we’re far more important than the person stood next to us. We’re convinced the world revolves around me, which makes absolute sense until the realisation dawns that there’s only one of those and six billion of us.*

The point of differentiation is amplitude. Flatlining days of endless drudgery are spiked by the crash-trolley of defibrillating otherness. Only outside the standard deviation of dullcanyou discover the fantastic outliers of possibilitiesand dreams. A landscape found though pointless Monday morning meetings, stupid people confusing volume with importance, in trays full of tedium and days long on repetition,but short on anything within drinking distance of joy.

Hang on you say; surely the solution is a Steve Jobs-esque vocational transformation triggered by the fleetingly logical ‘if you hate your job two days in a row, go do something else’. Really? Or to be rather less fence-sitting; fuck that. Love my job so much that Mountain Biking somehow becomes Any Other Business? Stare out into a windowfull of big skies and wonder how I could make more money? Not willing the clock to tick faster so I can be done, outside and the person I believe myself to be? I say again, fuck that.

The clocked ticked and we’re sat in a van packed full of awesome mountain bikes, testosterone and a level of anticipation last found on a pubescent boy venturing out on his first date. Months of slogging through the mud and sweating on a spin bike brought us here – impatiently waiting forthis day, THIS DAY, pretending to be adults, but our inner children are stuffing gobs full of crisps and turning up the stereo**.

It’s an 80 MPH sleepover heading 900 miles due south to a place where the earthis bleached in sunshine, the trails are mostly rocks sprinkled with a little dust, the beer is cold and the decision tree is forked between ‘ride‘ and ‘drink‘. There is no nuance, no compromises, no weighing up the options, no looking for angles – this is life on uppers, amped to the max, full of opportunity and newness. Wake me up in heaven.

After 2/3rds of a journey spanning fifteen hours, I shaded bleary eyes against an encroachingdawn expecting skies the size of Kansas burning under equatorial temperatures. The optic nerve doesn’t have much truck with metaphor and offered me instead snow and -2. First thought; Cez has white line fever and – as most people faced with four hours driving at 2AM – gone with ‘Fuck it. Change of plan, we’re going to Austria’. But no, this was the last high plateau separating the flatulent four from sea level.

Took a while tho. And our arrival failed to coincide with the early summer we’d been promising ourselves. Still huge relief to unfold ourselves from stiffened sitting positions and allowing fresh air into the recesses of a van recently populated by four men engorged on crisps and energy bars***

French Coffee. God I’m alive, for a minute there it wasn’t entirely clear if I’d passed into a better place. Big ask that with blue skies silhouetting snow capped mountains refracted through medieval walls and sunglasses dusted off from last summer. This is the stuff of life, right here. Let’s get amongst it.

Bikes out, critical faff, clothing located with’hands like waterwheels‘ travelling throughcarefully packed bags. Chains lubed, tyres pumped, sinews stiffened, muscles stretched. Time to ride. Not – and I think it’s important to make this point – time to ride well.

Fifteen hours in the van. Sleep best categorised as fuck-all. Desperate not to ride like a twat. Equally desperate not to mong oneself on the first descent. Trying to play it cool, but basically mainlining the friendless kid shouting ‘pick me, pick me‘ withteam games configured for social angst.

It’s all good tho. We’re out of the town and climbing on an ancient firetrack opening out views to a lotof France and a bit of Spain. Not pushing it like the uber-competitve two hour Wednesday night ride. Not checking watches for the Sunday ride finish. Not thinking about the bastard climbs coming up, nor the tricky obstacles you need an excuse to avoid.

No just ride, up a big hill, stop for a sandwich and a laugh. Take the piss before someone gets to you first, then drop into box-fresh trails without any idea of what happens next. Shall I tell you what happens next? Three turns in, you regress to being eleven years old and the first time you ever scared yourself in the woods. Your head is full of nothing and everything; solving difficult three dimensional problems in real time, searching for grip on unfamiliar dirt, heart pumping adrenaline laced blood, eyes wide scanning for the next line, wondering if’ll end in a second and praying it’ll go on for ever.

Shuddering to a stop, giggling and pointing and wondering if you could ever feel this alive all the time. And of course you can’t, because while the minutes and hours of a little life may drag, it’s the seconds which elevate itbeyond the angst of ‘is this as good as it gets?‘

Days later Matt and I shared a thought that while we felt smooth and safe, we didn’t feel fast. One trail later all that changed in a maelstrom of rocks, risk and reward. But we were asking entirely the wrong question. And it is this, where do I genuinely feel at peace with myself?

Out there somewhere on that trail we found it.

* incidentally this is why you should never worry if you’ve offended someone with a crass remark. They haven’t noticed because their entire cerebral processing is focused on what they’re going to say next.

** including such classics as Highway to Smell and No Sleep Till Paris (especially if you’re driving)

*** Air has no self determination, right? That’s what I thought until the mild zephyr we opened the door on escalated to a majorhurricane as the air desperately evacuated the van. I think my ears popped.

Why, What, Who, When and (w)How. Those radiating grammatical keenness, edging worryinglyclose to the border of insanity,shall be raising grubby digits and demanding satisfaction on exactly how many wublewus there are in ‘How‘. As ever, my response is loquacious, obscure and essentially blaming someone else*

Let’s move the discussion on under the auspices of misdirection, and apply this questioning method to riding mountain bikes in the winter. The mentally deluded, southern geographiedoraggressively medicated will make much of false idols preaching the canon of the unridden. That fat demons await those afflicted with sofa-suck, unable to shift ever lardening arse from beguiling images shifting fast on 50 inch screens. Those righteous worship atthe shrine of ‘any ride is better than no ride at all‘.

Well yes up to a point. That point being the first W – Why? Why am I out here in the pissing rain? Why is everyone else apparently enjoying themselves? Why are they better liars than me? Why am I ruining expensive components to slither darkly in gloom of night and endless slop? Why did I use to find this fun?

Good questions but the wrong ones; lacking existentialism, for which you need a what. What is the bloody point of doing the same thing week after week and expecting a different result? What happens if I don’t do this? What does riding through the winter actually prove? What happened to the fun?

Ah the final question is a good one and it has much to do with the third W. Who are the silly fuckers slogging through this 90 day quest? Who cares enough to face the mirror in the clothes we were born inand exclaim ‘this shall not be’? Who will fetch me out of a snowdrift and provide cheery commentary on a day shivering in the windchill? Who’ll share a beer, a grin and a memory once we’re all bled and done?

For all of that support group, there is a point when enough really is enough. A place in time when you’ve been sleeted on just one too many times. A period when shrugging into four layers of winter gear feels too damn hard. A vignette of misery as almost frozen mud pebble dashes an already bone-chilled individual from earlobe to toe.

When will it get better? When will this stop? When does this bastard chill wind warm me? When do the trails force themselves above the water table? When will there be something to look at other than the endless bleakness of leafless branches reaching into a storm filled sky?

Which brings us rather nicely to How. Technically it’s a mostly circular planet hurtling across space and time with a spin of 70,000 MPH, all the time balancing gravity and momentum to circle rather than plunge into a gas giant usefully exploding at regular intervals.**

How do things get better? How is it that imperceptibly longer daylight hours and a barely noticeable increase in ambient temperatures move the cycle on? How is it that tiny plants sucking moisture from long forgotten fun trails divinea dry line where for months it’s been a messy watercolour?

Five questions. No real answers. Every year it gets a little more difficult to find a reason to bother asking. Coping strategies and indoor cycling bulwark fading motivation and a fat slice of can’t be arsed. Until today, until opening a car door isn’t instantly followed by a retreat to add many more clothes. Until the trail gives only a little under tractionand a little less under cautiously placed angled tyres.

Until the wind is welcome and warming. Until you stop and stare at the curvature of the earth without a shiver trigger to move on. Until every run in and run out from tricky obstacles are firm and sure. Until the fitness you’ve selfishly hoarded all winter makes climbing mostly a joy, traverses fast but not loose and descents so simple without combating the slimey.

We ask the wrong questions. Sometimes the why, what, who, when and how seem as insoluble as the trails which are exactly that. It’s caterpillars and butterflies. You’ve got to ignore the misery of the winter to fly in the joy of Spring.

Today made that real. We didn’t ride that far. We stopped for tea in the sunshine. We stared long at muscular hills backlit by graduatedazure skies. We pushed it a little bit, but laughed a whole lot more. And all around us were the buds of Spring ready to explode in the sunlight.

In six days, we’ll be riding bikes some 900 miles south of here, ripping up arid trails under a mediterraneansun, bookended by drinking beer under clear skies, andwondering what all that winter fuss was about.

If it’s even close to the fun we had today, I can hardly bloody wait. Someone finally crankedthe season-ratchet. I’m out of metaphors so let’s go with ‘thank fuck for that’.

* This is how Business Analysis is taught under the auspices of an apparently rigorous and matriculated curriculum. You are encouraged to always be asking questions. Apart from this one.

** I’ll concede better explanations are available for those with more than a passing understanding of astrophysics. As are worse ones, generally from the God Botherers, flat earthers and almost any group with a terrifyingly narrow focus on how the world works. ThinkUKIP if you’re struggling for a representative example.