'There and back again' Wednesday chaingang Dec 5

 illustration by Eric Fraser

One degree above freezing brought twelve riders - notes were compared on winter gear- always a compromise for me of being too hot under effort or being too cold when waiting at stops - average speed out 21, back 22. We met a group of five or so new faces en route, well one I think we met at the club hillclimb the other day, why not meet us at the start next week and say hello. Got news from Barney about his Elite, 1s and 2s race at Hillingdon last weekend.  Later on I thought we'd blown him away, but he explained later he'd felt his back wheel go away from him  and stopped to see if tyre was soft, in fact it was some icing on the road - of course we believe him.   Malc, Nathan, Stuart and Svawek did most of the pulling on front as far as I could see. As Dave H-H pointed out pace is down a bit from the race pace of early September - suits me as I can now bring the fixed winter bike and leave the racer tucked up at home, also on  fixed Malc wisely  rode a traditional low winter gear of 46 x 18 to save the knees and improve spinning power and I had 48x17- which is fine for chaingang but a bit high for longer hilly rides. Watch out for nasty little pothole coming down the hill heading towards Pevensey, nobody saw it and I hit it square on, the air turned blue maybe causing some paint to blister on nearby frames but no serious mechanical harm was done.