Winter Cycling Checklist

• hat – check
• ear warmers – check
• Buff – check
• merino base layer – check
• two jumpers – check
• gloves – check
• two pairs of socks – check
• winter boots – check
• brown trousers – check  (well, some of those downhill sections can be a little dicey).

Thus kitted out, I set off to fetch the paper yesterday. We haven’t really had that much snow, but we’ve had pretty much solidly freezing temperatures for days now and what snow we’ve had is still there on the back roads. It’s cyclable with care, except where there’s been enough sun to melt it and let it re-freeze into ice. There were a few adrenaline-pumping moments when the back wheel shimmied beneath me but I somehow stayed upright. And by the time I got home I was glowing with the ride and feeling pretty hardy to have got out at all.

Or at least, I would have been feeling hardy had I not seen a girl in Bigtown the other night wearing a pair of capri trousers and – I swear I’m not making this up – sparkly flip-flops. All this at -2°C. I knew they bred them hardy up here; I just didn’t know they bred them totally insane.