Awesome Autumn

 

I live for weekends like these. It’s Monday and I am still beaming from how good yesterday was. I might as well be in another world, I was certainly in a different place all weekend… I was on my bike.


There comes a point in the season where you feel as though you spend all your time racing your bike and very little time just riding it for enjoyment. I don’t think anyone would describe bike racing as fun, it’s a much bigger thing than that, it’s racing and that’s my only way to describe it.

Autumn is a chance to do things you don’t normally do during the race season, and usually an Autumn ride will include rustling leaves, crisp air, hardy conditions, stories, the odd song, more stories, and with the memory of months of racing in your legs no one is ready to ride easy. That’s what Winter is about, right?

I met up with a few Catford (Jeff Banks’ project) riders in Kingston picking up Massimo of X-Bionic at Giro Esher, fresh with stories of Lamborghini related antics the day previous. Our general plan was to Ride into Surrey and come back to Ottershaw in time to cheer on a few of our friends that were still racing.

We set off toward Shere via Ripley Lane and Shere Road. From Shere we decided to let our sense of direction take the lead and we followed our noses along some sweet roads through Winterfold Forest into Guildford, Woking, then finally stopping at the Circuit near Longcross. We caught the last few laps, where Jake took 3rd, then we rode home. Our party was now doubled in size and included a man almost three times my age. Sunday evening was capped off with a trip to the Olympic Velodrome for a Track League briefing followed by a ‘few quiet ones’ (which definitely weren’t quiet, or few!).

Cycling, our shared connection and passion, is difficult to describe to people on the outside, I think a Bodhi quote from Point Break sums it up:

“It’s a state of mind. It’s that place where you lose yourself and find yourself”

- Nigel MacAodha

You can follow Nigel on Instagram. Nigel is one of our bike fit experts at Bespoke.