In the deep midwinter, it’s too easy to hibernate. The sofa and screen exert a pull that even the most active cyclists can find hard to resist.

Yet it needn’t be like this. As a wise person once said, weather always looks worse through a window. When you’re out on the road, the rain may not feel so cold, so intense. (At least if you have the right clothes and mudguards.)

When the cold, rain and darkness makes ‘real’ cycling intimidating, Indoor cycling is the answer. It is a far more attractive option than when I did my first indoor ride in 1995. On a cold January day that year, I struggled to carry an indoor roller back to the office from a bike shop in Cheltenham. I used it occasionally. Seven years later, I did training for my first Land’s End to John O’Groats bike ride on an indoor trainer, but they were empty hours: I wasn’t tested enough for the training to count.

The photo above shows me smiling as I descended the famous seven mile bank on the path of the old Brecon & Merthyr Railway towards Talybont on Usk after an Easter Saturday ride from Cardiff with my friend Richard. It may have been spring, but we arrived in a blizzard! My Dawes Super Galaxy was the perfect ride, as I blogged recently.

By contrast, today’s inside cycling can be as testing as any real life hill. When I got my Wattbike Atom in 2018, I found I preferred TrainerRoad to Zwift. I quickly got bored with Zwift, yet I found TrainerRoad’s workouts oddly compelling. There was no hiding place from the effort it demanded. (Apart from dialling down the effort needed.) But this week, I discovered Zwift’s many attractions. Watopia, which I dismissed as a gimmick three years ago, now strikes me as a stunning backdrop for indoor cycling.

Yet the great outdoors still inspires and rewards like no indoor ride. Two weeks ago, I set off on my mountain bike in the snow. It was a pleasure to see families revelling in a winter wonderland – a brief escape from the tedium of England’s third pandemic lockdown. This ride was all about the satisfaction of being in the elements with no thought of Strava achievements. It was all the better for it.

As a result, I am miles ahead of my usual cycling goals. I cycled 508 miles indoors and out in January – over 150 miles more than my previous winter month’s total. I hope to pass 1,000 miles in 2021 before February is over. That will be over six weeks earlier than my previous fastest 1,000 miles, in 2019, when I was training for my second Land’s End to John O’Groats ride. It’s all about habit, and putting in the miles indoors when venturing out is unappealing.

I’ll close this post with an image of an earlier magical winter bike ride. One crisp winter’s day in 2012, I took my original 1994 mountain bike through Hodgemoor Wood above our village. I found joy in exploring the wintry trails, capturing the moment with my digital SLR, which I carried in my CamelBak. I blogged about those pleasures here.

We’re expecting snow again tomorrow. My bike is ready. Here’s to winter riding.