Wednesday, December 8, 2010

A quick loop out to Wilbraham and back - via the Carpenter's Arms

Wednesday, 8th December: Despite what the weather forecasters told us about the temperature I found it colder cycling today than the previous day, which really was colder. Here in the flatlands it was around -6C at 9am on Tuesday and around -2C to -3C today. I am struggling to get any real cycling distance in at the moment, caused by a combination of things to do and weather that is off-putting. So I am combining the two and trying to add a few kilometres/miles when I cycle off to meetings.


The good thing is that most of my meetings also seem to involve lunch which helps to break up the cycling into smaller chunks. This means that even though I am not wearing quite as much cold-weather clothing I am not suffering from the cold too much. If anything I tend to get to my destination rather hot and sweaty. Smart (er) trousers tend not to offer much warmth so I probably over compensate with a warm jacket and jumper.


The meeting was held at the Carpenters' Arms in Great Wilbraham - a pub that has recently been updated into a gastro pub. This meant quite a pleasant cycle out of Cambridge along NCN51 to Bottisham and then down through Little Wilbraham to Great Wilbraham. Not the longest of rides, but quite pleasant in the middle of the day. It was definitely not as cold as the previous day there was very little frost in the fields or on the trees.


I had have to do a hard reset on my Garmin GPS as it had started reporting memory full errors and then failed to record the last ride. Despite having deleted the ride history! This happens every few months and I have a file containing to remind myself what needs to be programmed in again. The hard-reset doesn't actually delete the history I had to use my computer to access the directory directly to delete the files. Although the hard-reset is supposed to! It is a nuisance but at least I can work around the little foibles.


The food was good - soup to start, always welcome on a cold wintry day and then bangers and mash - again good for cold weather. To cut down on stuff to carry I had taken my pocket camera and only stopped for one picture. (Actually 2 x 3 - HDRed and then combined in a "panorama".) This one - the fields between Wilbraham and Fulbourn, green rather than white. I had also not bothered to take a front light with me and so did not hang around too much and headed for home back through Fulbourn and then along Airport Way onto NCN51 on Newmarket Road.


Clouds over Fulbourn.jpg


What I did notice when I got home was I took ages to get warm again. The ride back although shorter had chilled me down and even though the house was warm I shivered for a long time after getting back. I did wonder whether I was sickening, there are cold germs floating around the house. But after supper I felt fine again. So hopefully it was just the cold. On Tuesday, although it was colder it wasn't difficult to breathe when cycling, but today (Wednesday) the air did "burn" my lungs a little. Perhaps because I was going faster and so having to breathe in (and out) more air.

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