This is it. This is the point of no return. It is but a meagre one degree outside. Opening the door is akin to opening the fridge. Summer was bliss, autumn was kind, winter is the violent visitor that everyone dreads. We've held it off as long as possible. I only took out my heavy duty cycling gear last weekend. I'd gotten away without bullet proof gloves, ten layers of clothing or an ice-cream headache to mid-November. Spins had instead been thick with the smell of leaves, fruit lying where it fell, a midday warmth and a feeling of getting away with something. The fields were plowed, the harvest stored, cattle were still in the fields.
And then today, I opened the door. One degree.
So this is the great divide. If I go cycling today I'm committing to something big. A Winter spent on the bike is costly. It is an agreement with the elements that you are going to battle with them. You will fight. You will become a solitary soul that wanders the semi-dark wastelands of early winter mornings in search of miles. Your intention? To defeat the dark season and vanquish all that it throws at you, in the name of fitness. But don't get me wrong, winter might be a tough opponent that makes a majority tootle away to a fireside, a high stool or to Netflix, that Jumanji-like streaming service that many never return from. However, winter is more of a personal battle. Once you commit to pulling on the overshoes, lobster gloves and head warmer, you are investing in a world few outside of cycling understand.
For now begins the pre-dawn breakfast, the charging of lights, pumping of tyres, the oiling your weapon that nobody sees. The dark yard, the shed prep for the morning spin. Now begins the unseen. What most people witness is some gonzo cyclist, lit up like a stack of pallets in Belfast on July 12th out on the road. What nobody sees is that night time shuffle to get ready, the clothing layed out, the bottles ready. Or that early morning zombie walk in the kitchen, the porridge consumed, the coffee lighting the fuse. It could be two degrees, it could be blowing a gale or it could be raining sideways. But you made a pact with yourself. And if you go back to bed once, just once... it's over. You'll go back on other mornings, you'll lose sight of next season, you'll make promises that won't happen and you'll be... ordinary. A sunshine cyclist.
And it's a huge step. It is a horrible one, leaving that warmth and comfort and the known for outside, where it is cool, uncomfortable and unknown. But within twenty minutes you are loving it. The fact that you are out cycling, training now, going somewhere, bettering yourself, beating the sofa-surfers and duvet-divers. Smug? Why not? You've done something most won't. And most won't understand. Ever.
Of course it gets more difficult as you get older. A lot of miles on the clock, a lot of air miles in the lungs. you'd think it'd get easier as you age... I mean, haven't you done this before fella? What's the big deal? Nothing new here. The problem is, on those long spins into the dawn in December and January when the natural order in your DNA is to hibernate, you have too much time to think about everything. You've done this in some way, shape or form for forty years lad, do you need to go again? Well... yes actually. You see, cycling is what I am and I am cycling. It has kept me alive and made me feel alive at many points in my life. So as long as there is a race to compete in, an event to aim for, I'm kind of obliged to keep going.
And today is the great divide day. I am heading out into the frost in an hour's time, heading out into the unknowns of winter. I've enjoyed these last couple of months cycling and soaking it all up... but today is the big ask, for nature has drawn it's annual line. Can I step out the door and meet winter head on? Do I have the head for it?
Do I heck. I don't want to be ordinary. I don't want my cycling life to be a Coldplay song.
