I don’t know if you’ve noticed - if you’re in the northern hemisphere, anyway - but it’s getting a bit nippy. There are still warm days, of course, but we are very much in autumn territory now.
What a summer it was for bike riding. After the seemingly endless rain of the winter and spring came those perfect days where you could just wear a jersey and shorts for hours, and not feel a chill. Those bike rides where the time stretches, there is no rush to get back home before it gets cold or gets dark, when you can embark on adventures big or small. I love a week where you accidentally do a lot of riding, without really realising - you agree to a ride here and there, and all of a sudden, you’ve been 200km in seven days.
My favourite ride of the summer actually came quite a while ago, in early June, when I joined a group of friends to ride to Cheltenham from Bristol, in the south west of England. It’s not a particularly hard or long route, but everything about it was perfect. The temperature was just right, we stopped off at a dream pub en route - The Woolpack, in case you’re wondering, but I’ll leave the pub chat to another column - and it was the perfect mix of speed and chill. My only regret is that I spent most of the time on the front, and not enough time chatting to my friends, but that is simply how I insist on riding. Until I get dropped.
