I don’t think I have ever trained so hard over a Christmas period and this year seemed to be one icy morning after the next!!
Me and Derrick Kent decided to do a big one and meet at Lidl just after 7am. Derrick was riding in from Hibaldstow and being in winter we both needed lights for the first hour or so which made the ice look even worse!!!!

The sun eventually made an appearance!!
We set off along the main road in the direction of the airport as this was a main gritted route and eventually the sun started to rise!! Flipping hell it was bloody cold, my hands still hadn’t warmed up!
We found ourselves just following the main road (A18), past Immingham, Waltham and then Louth until we reached Mablethorpe (where I bought some extra socks at pound-land!). Then we had the bright idea of continuing to Skegness, why not we have come this far!!
We cut through a back road at Mablethorpe and I had a big moment as the back end of the bike came to take a look which way the front was heading!! Anyway that seemed to help warm me up!
Arriving at Skegness we set about finding a cafe that was open, where we found Caesars (ironically next to Dereks Cycles!) and once inside we had the full Monty and a bit more!! The problem now is we didn’t want to leave!
Eventually we did summon up the strength to leave and slowly headed out of Skegness trying to generate some heat and digest the full English!
We decided to head back via Horncastle (A158) and then take the Caistor High Street (B1225). On reaching the 100 mile point Derrick was starting to flag but kept going and never complained. Once we reached Caistor we knew we hadn’t got far to go and the banter started to flow as we headed home. This was a tough day given the conditions and was chuffed to bits at clocking 126 miles!