Home Forums Weekday Rides Tandem news Re: Tandem news

#25483
Sweaty Eds
Member

Before setting out this morning I checked the Collins online dictionary for a definition of brighten up

Brighten up – a relative term meaning;

1. to make bright or become brighter

2. to make or become cheerful

So far, so good, I though.

It also documented, a little further down the page, how ‘brighten up’ can relate to an improvement in weather conditions, it even mentioned warm sunshine.

I know hindsight is a wonderful thing and perhaps I was a little naive to believe anything Valleyman says, certainly I wouldn’t trust him to safely navigate me from Prince’s Gate to Narberth High Street and he would be way down my list when it came to people I would ask to help me with a puncture, but, I thought, with his Tom and Barbara ‘Good Life’ style self sufficient existence, he would be more reliable when it came to forecasting the weather. Now, I know he’s not inherently evil like Huw ‘Pol Pot’ Morgan, or a sadist like Nick ‘Marquis de Sade’ Brown but, after this, I’ve got my doubts whether he’s quite the upfront clean living guy he paints himself as.

Anyway, the sense in which Valleyman uses the term ‘brighten up’ must be very similar to the how Mrs Noah used it when she told her husband not to bother finishing the Ark because it was brightening up.

To be honest, I didn’t set off at bang on 9 because I thought I’d give the weather an opportunity to ‘brighten up’. After a couple of hours of brightening up the stair-rod-style rain had brightened into a pleasant heavy drizzle and I set off towards the North. I passed NB almost immediately, I think it was him, well it looked like Nick would look after a couple of hours sitting a tepid bath.

I wasn’t intending to following the prescribed route because I wasn’t really sure the weather was going to brighten that much over Maenchlochog way, but this meant that I’d be stuck in the Gelli/Llawhaden/Bethesda hill triangle. It’s no secret that I don’t usually seek out the hills. Half my brain knows that the only way to improve on them is to go out and climb more of them (that and lose a couple of stone) but the other half, the stronger half, knows that everyone waits at the top so what’s the hurry?

I was out for about an hour an a half and quite enjoyed it really, I mean you can only get soaked to the skin once can’t you and once you’re wet, you’re wet.

I remember, a few years ago when I did a fair bit of water sports, that there was a sure way to warm yourself up when wearing a wetsuit, is there a cycling/lycra equivalent?