Yesterday I suffered the worst crash of my cycling career. Which, in fact, isn’t saying much. It seems how ever hard I try I can’t seem to hurt myself seriously!

Anyway, what happened was that the roads were a little damp, making them a little greasy. I was second wheel going round a roundabout, and Andy in front of me suddenly hit the deck (later road examination suggested some diesel on the surface). This left me nowhere to go but to attempt to go inside him (I had another rider to my left), and the combination of greasy road, very very slick tyre, braking and tightening of corner conspired to dump me on the ground before I knew what was happening. Lesson learned, buy new tyres.

So, just when I thought I was getting over the sprained wrist from 3 months ago…

Today I rode my bike in Spain, 80km of beautiful road surfaces, flat flats, beautiful climbs and technical descents. Oh and 20ºC temperature!

I’m out here for a bit more than a week with the guys from DUCC for some winter training, in the sun. The tan lines are being cultivated as per Rule 7, and a healthy amount of pro spotting has been done. Alexandre Kolobnev in his full Russian champions kit along with Yuri Tropimov. And a large group of riders including new Movistar & HTC jerseys. All in all, good day.

So today my weather widget tells me it’s -4ºC in Montgomery, Powys (that’s 269K for those physicists who only speak in SI Units). So I decided it was the perfect day to get out on my bike. I haven’t been training for 6 weeks since I picked up an injury on Manchester velodrome, which was followed by snow and an illness.

I figured for my first ride in that long it wasn’t going to be inside on the turbo trainer. So, with extra layers and a little less pressure in the tyres I was off out to enjoy Christmas Eve on the roads of Wales (and England also incidentally).

Despite the lack of traffic you get in foreign countries like Wales, the roads were surprisingly clear. I only lost grip once, when I tried to accelerate a little too quickly on a slightly icy road.

Hopefully it’ll warm up slightly so the best roads to ride on are clear enough of snow/ice to be safe. I had to return home to my grandparents on the main road today, which is barely safer. I’ve noticed that drivers seem to get worse in snow and near Christmas, rather than more cautious and better as you would expect in the current weather.

Anyway in conclusion, I need to tape up the air vents in my cycling shoes, get something to cover my mouth and something to stop my drink from freezing – PSP22 energy drink obviously doesn’t have the same effect as salt. But anyway, though it wasn’t precipitating (snow or rain), it was ‘blinkin’ cold, and much Rule 9 was on show