The frost still lay thick on the ground at 8o’clock this morning, as Nick set off to join about twenty other intrepid cyclists from the Nogaro club on the annual CODEP 64 ride. Their destination was Lourdes, in Haute Pyrenees, departement 64, where they would meet up with other cyclists from all around the area for lunch, then cycle back home again; 180km in total.

The weather was glorious, the sun soon burning the frost away to leave a day of clear blue skies and temperatures around 15ºC. The route was relatively flat, too, much to everyone’s relief; that is, as flat as it gets when you’re riding into the foothills of the Pyrenees! When they arrived at the Lourdes Cycle Club clubhouse, an old railway station just south of the town, there was a barbecue; sausages and ventreche (belly pork), to be piled into baguettes, followed by cakes and dried fruits and washed down with the inevitable red wine.

Nick was a little concerned that he’d done very little by way of training and certainly nothing approaching this distance, but he needn’t have worried; he was strong enough to do a large portion of the return trip on the front of the group, sprinting up the hills a few miles from Nogaro, and didn’t even have the decency to feel tired when he arrived home!

Joel’s back from his hols now, so tomorrow could well be back to the grind; I think the next job will be replacing the roof, so no more lie-ins for a while!