Alistair arrived early to tell Michael that the road was icy this morning. Evidently he forgot this warning as we set off down the road: Callum was coming up the road as we were going down, Michael was looking straight at him trying to work out if it was him, hit an invisible icy patch and promptly hit the road. Alistair found the whole thing very amusing. Ash turned up at 10.30 just in time to miss the action, although he had found some icy patches on his way down in the car that had given him a couple of near misses.

We had planned to ride to Fermoys at Ipplepen today, but in view of the icy conditions we thought a change of route to Dean Hill might be safer. This proved to be ice-free so we rode to South Brent, bought some refreshments from the co-op and then rode along the Avon river from Avonwick. It really was a fabulous morning now.

Ash had his new Specialized road bike today, a much-anticipated Christmas present, so we kept to roads for today's ride. We took the short-cut past Diptford Downs and returned via Rattery and Pennywell by 1.20.