Ice warning

Yesterday when I woke and looked out of the window I saw the first decent weather in what seemed like weeks. The sun was shining low in a bright blue sky and no wind was shaking the trees. Time to get out the road bike and have a good long ride to stretch the legs and the lungs. Before that though, I had to take the dogs out for their morning walk. Two or three steps out on to the pavement and I knew the sunshine was a cruel deception. The pavements and roads were treacherous with black ice.

Ice is just about the only road condition I really fear. I can control the bike in rain, wind and even to some extent in snow, but black ice is an invisible threat too far. The bike can be away from under the rider in an instant, with no warning. Now, taking a tumble from a bike is one thing when you're twenty years old and 65 kg or so. A nasty knock to elbows or knees, perhaps a stinging road rash, or at worst a couple of fractures which should heal fairly quickly. But when you're sixty or more and perhaps nearer 100 kg than you'd like to be, a fall from the bike, at any sort of speed, could be of much greater consequence. Disabling injuries are far from impossible. And that could be the end of the cycling, if not worse.

So the lovely sunny morning was spent spring cleaning the bathroom and the shower.