UKC

Following on from my fetish thread..

1. I just do
2. Riding on a crisp, frosty day is just so invigorating
3. An excuse to get wet, muddy, and out of shape on the trails, before heading for a pint or three with your mates, a shared experience.
4. Plenty of night riding to be had before heading for a pint or three
5. Riding in the snow and making fresh tracks in empty woodland
6. It makes me feel so alive..
7. I have the work bikeshed to myself with no one nicking my usual space like they do in the summer.
8. Ditto the showers.
9. Riding in the winter fog is so eiry and other wordly. Silent but for the rolling of your bike down the trail (and the laughter at each other appearance).
10. Riding across frozen puddles and listening to them crack.
11. Mud measles..
12. Seeing the sunrise on the ride into work is something special.
13. Seeing the sunset on the ride home from work is something special.
14. You meet the hardcore cyclists in thw winter and greet them with a knowing smile!

I'm about to start my off road light charging recycle ahead of the night rides soon to come.

What are you reasons to enjoy cycling in the winter. Don't you just love it?

In reply to PaleMan:


You nailed it there.

In reply to psaunders:
Agreed, although I do agree with most of the comments above. Will be out winter night riding once I get back after my trip away

In reply to PaleMan:
Apart from the fact that I rarely see either the sunrise or sunset, I agree entirely with you - and particularly the bit about making fresh tracks in the snow in woodland.

The last two years have been fantastic - best of all was a ride down Burbage Valley on New Years Eve - fresh snow, full moon, no one else around. And then the view over Sheffield from Houndkirk. And then getting home knowing you've really earned those beers

In reply to Chris the Tall:

Yes I loved last winters snow.

I came face to face with a stag, in the snow, in fog, in woodland, at night. I could smell his breath, see his nostils flaring, and the steam rising.

We just looked at each other, after almost colliding; almost as soon as we'd met, he trotted off, and was lost to the mist, the silence once more descending.

Special encounters that just don't happen in the summer (at least for me)...

In reply to PaleMan:

21. Riding alongside the river, the ice floes screeching and smashing alongside you.
22. The sound of creaking, squeaking snow under your tyres.
23. The rit-tit-tit-tit-tit of ice spikers on 3 inch thick ice
24. Standing on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere that's taken you two or three hours to ride/push/carry up and looking out over your white blanketed world with an alpine blue sky above, absolutely alone, magically quiet, perfectly still and thinking for one glorious moment that you *could* be the only person in the whole wide world.


Don't get me wrong, I love road cycling but I have shivers of pleasure running up my spine just thinking about winter days and nights to come offroad.

In reply to MadHatter:

or if there's a group of you night riding and you get sufficiently far ahead on a hill climb say, that you can look back and see a bike lights twinkling in the darkness as they follow you up the hillside. Those lights are your groups personal Galaxy or Universe, beyond is nothingness..