Roll with it

I should have known I was in for a rough time when the man in the local bike shop smiled in a slightly sinister way.

"What have you got on that, anyway?"

"66 inches"

"You should be fine -- there's nothing really nasty, it's more...rolling"

As Jim Royle would say - "Rolling my Assos".

In Yorkshire for the week, at the old family home of Mrs Flandrian.  I'd taken the Tempo up, hoping for at least one run out in the countryside. 

Mrs F was pretty clueless about good cycling routes, so I turned to the man in the LBS -- a nice place, with the traditional mix of shoppers, cheap mtb's, kids' bikes and a couple of decent race frames.

He advised me to head for the Howardian Hills, a tourist-board-invented description of the countryside north of York.

Thick fog greeted me as I rolled out of the drive and headed north -- wet enough to make my jersey uncomfortably damp, but not enough to make it worth putting a rain jacket on until it was too late.

The fog and rain combined with the agricultural run-off from the fields to make it a pretty grim few hours, but oddly enjoyable in a Lance-Armstrong-I'll-be-grateful-for-this-when-summer-comes way.

But some of those Howardian Hills are surprisingly steep and long, and my lack of preparedness was sadly exposed.

80k tomorrow with the London to Paris team, at what they call a "gentle winter pace". We'll see.