Stick a fork in my arse, turn me over, I'm done.

After too many weekends of traveling to ride, it felt decadent to just ride from the door. Delayed by faff, route dithering and apathy that a 6-cup pot of espresso couldn't dispel, the pale Winter sky drew me through the door.

With the trails reduced to deepest chod, a road ride would be just the thing to awaken slumbering legs. With brain and iPod set to random I set off with no aim other than to earn my supper and ride a few new B-roads spotted some way off connecting the well-known.

You choose to do hill-reps in the Chilterns by leaving the house for a road ride and today I felt particularly masochistic too. Many of the roads were awash in rain-driven detritus; wood, gravel, road-kill and mud. Fields full of ripe egg-sized flints ready for harvest. Tail-wind, head-wind, tail-wind. Startled deer. Many, many kites. Special dusk light.

The weather held, the follow-my-nose route had a typically saw-tooth profile and the last miles ridden in the dark were spent planning a large risotto in great detail.

Deep bath, supper, fire-piled high. Stick a fork in my arse, turn me over, I'm done.