These cleats are made for walking......

I bet Mr Shimano never realised that his SPD SL cleats (with 3 degrees of float) make excellent crampons for 2 inch-thick ice on 12% gradients in England in sub-zero temperatures. But they do.

It was a work run today. I wimped yesterday, and really want to make the most of the school holidays to get some miles in. Never mind the 5 degrees below temperature. Never mind that my road looks more like the venue for the Toronto Maple leafs. Never mind that there was a five car pile up in slightly comical (no-one hurt) fashion outside the house. Never mind the dark, the salt, the traffic on the main roads.

I had to ride today!

Except I couldn't. At least for the first mile, because of said road. So I had to walk, all Geri Halliwell-like (think about it) all the way to the main road at the bottom of the hill. And actually, despite, or maybe because of the cleats, it was OK. I then rode all the way up the A38, past the airport, with my various lights, reflectors and high-visibility clothing doing their jobs very well. And of course all the various layers of clothing, if anything I was slightly on the hot side.

Except for when I had to go down the other side. I think the airport is about 600 feet above Bristol, and it is one long, cold, 8% descent, at least the first mile is. This was the scarey bit, what happens if you hit a patch of black ice at 35 mph on 25mm tyres? I tried really hard not to brake, and even harder not to think about it. But of course I did both, and crawled down the hill, almost as slowly as I had crawled up it.

Coming home I went via Long Ashton, fewer hills, but alas more ice. So back to the A370, which was its usual grind, until the moment came. I thought the Exmoor Beast was scarey. This was different league. The hill from Cleeve into Congresbury on the A370 isn't even graded. If I could have seen Charlie I think he would have said about 7%, if that. But there were huge patches of black ice all over the slope, how I didn't fall off I will never know. I couldn't stop because I would have needed to brake too hard, which would have sent me into a skid and a definite tumble.

If only my lights weren't so good, I could have gone faster because i would have been blissfully unaware!

At least coming home through Churchill, Sandford and Winscombe I had the sense to get to the end of my road closest to my house. So the day ended as it had begun, with a walk, but this time only half a mile. The police have actually closed the road, but idiots are still driving down it. And they aren't gritting lorries either.

Charlie stats below:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/20870370

Painfully slow because of all that walking, being scared and the urban nightmare that is Bristol traffic. Still it was 38 miles I wouldn't have done otherwise.....