Different folks

I hope you all had as lovely a weekend as I did. Three visitors descended on Horningsea for a national cycling conference that was held in Cambridge. I think they were a bit worried to begin with, 'cos we're not that close to the middle of the city. But when they found they were eating eggs from our very own hens and drinking water from our very own well, they soon got reconciled to the slightly longer than expected ride into town.

What different folks they are. A cycle politician, one of the geniuses behind the magnificent Facility of the Month website http://www.warringtoncyclecampaign.co.uk/ and a fundamentalist: don't give us crap cycle lanes, just enforce road rules, apply sensible road design and cyclists, drivers and pedestrians will rub along just fine. A man who has devoted a significant proportion of his life to training youngsters to cycle safely. And one whose idea of a good time is to cycle 1200 km in 90 hours (including sleeping time). They were all very supportive of my LE->JOG ambitions.

On Sunday we went for a long and slow ride. 50 miles including a cafe and two pubs, in glorious sunshine, chatting our way through the countryside. Just what I needed to reinforce my growing confidence that the physical strain of my forthcoming ride will not be the hard bit (except maybe that daily confrontation with my hard new saddle).