The weather people have been making dire predictions over the last few days. Apparently England's about to have a weeklong ice age etc etc yada yada. But I don't believe 'em. Why? Well Spring starts soon and when it arrives I will have ridden through two complete winters. That's two winters where we've been told we are about to experience the coldest season in years, where Siberia is arriving to stay but what actually happens? It rains a bit... Just like it normally does in England in the winter. It's just the weather people hedging their bets. Now don't get me wrong I'm sure this will be a cold week, we might even seen a dusting of snow, in fact this morning there was a good frost. But it isn't going to be feet deep in snow anytime that the gulf stream continues to head this way.
On top of my cynicism about the coming weather I have another reason to scoff in old man winters face. My new job is a mere three miles from my house. My commute is now a ten minute run of cutting up the rush hour traffic. This means I'm actually riding with my Kevlar lined jeans on instead of full textile gear just because I don't get cold in those ten minutes. What luxury that is!
So why's this post called "Learning from friends"? Well, a while ago Gary posted about how he'd ridden off his drive onto what turned out to be sheet ice. This morning as I headed down the drive I remembered what had happened to Gary and I stopped to look at the road's surface just because it was a very frosty day... and what do you know? In the shadow of the houses behind me the road was icy! So cheers to Gary, his post may well have kept me upright. :D