Who Rides on a Day Like This?

I didn’t actually take a photo as I set out this morning into the dreich – but it turns out that one wet November morning looks very like another, so here’s one I prepared earlier.

I was heading off to lead the latest Bigtown Cycle Campaign winter ride, resplendent in waterproof trousers, which, frankly, are neither a good look nor a good sign that you’re in for a wonderful day. The forecast had been for it to not actually rain, but I’ve learned the hard way since moving up here that there’s a particular kind of very fine, very wet rain, that seems invisible to forecasters and rain radars alike. So while the weather app on my phone was confidently telling me that it wasn’t raining, wouldn’t rain, and indeed hadn’t even been raining, the actual rain falling out of the sky was busy telling me otherwise.

Amazingly, though, I wasn’t the only person who thought a cycle ride in the not officially raining rain was a good way to spend a Sunday. Even more amazingly, it soon went from not officially raining to actually not actually raining and we were able to shed the waterproof trousers and enjoy the ride, if not the views.

Far too much of my cycling at the moment is just wearing a groove between home and Bigtown so days like today – weather gripes aside – remind me that we’re incredibly lucky to have a massive network of largely empty roads like this to cycle on. The fact that this one also ends up at a decent cafe is just the icing on the cake.*

* actually a triple-chocolate brownie which – sacrilegiously – was actually a bit OTT even for me.