Must try harder.

I've got a parents' evening tomorrow night so I'd be missing the Thursday night ride. I haven't managed to cycle to work yet this week because I've been too lazy to strip down the bottom bracket, a job which can be done in about 4 minutes. Only one thing for it - a Wednesday night ride.

After a great deal of faffing around, the slight drizzle has turned to a relentless, sleety downpour driven in on a cold easterly wind. So I head west. This is easy, I'm flying along uphill without breaking sweat. The GPS is trilling at me to tell me my heart rate is too low!

I turn left down the hill and then left again to pick up the cycle track back into town. Suddenly it's all different. The sleety rain makes it impossible to see and within minutes I can't change gears because my thumbs are numb. I could build up a singlespeed but that might be perceived as a relaxing of my hostility towards bearded bike geeks, and I can't be having that.

Heading back up the street I get a "You're keen pal!" from a local gadgie - fulsome praise - but he doesn't know that I've only been out for 21 minutes and 27 seconds, covering 7.18km with an average HR of 136bpm.

Pathetic.