I had a short recovery ride last night on account of the few inches of snow we had yesterday (it’s all gone now though). The Hit the North course is looking “interesting” in time for Saturday’s race – it’s not wrecked but it’ll definately be muddy unless we see a dramatic drop in temperature in the next day or so.

My short ride was made even shorter by first of all my rear brake stopping working (a crappy V-brake) – it got so bad that I had to stop to undo the cable retaining bolt on the arm, pull some cable through then nip it up again. It was less crappy then but still crap. The cable needs replacing too – it almost needs 2 hands to pull the lever. Admittedly, it’s been rubbish for ages but I’ve been seeing how long I can go without maintaining the winter singlespeed. 4 months, as it happens – not bad eh?

Then the freewheel had trouble engaging as I was setting off. It worked eventually but once that happens there’s always a nagging doubt in your mind that it’s going to go, just as you’re climbing out of the saddle and send you, genitals first, into the stem. So I backed off, which then meant that uphills were rubbish because of the flaky freewheel and downhills were rubbish because I had hardly any brakes. At least my lights didn’t konk out this time.

4 miles – perhaps the shortest ride I’ve ever done?