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So I missed an opportunity yesterday to get out in the glorious but chilly sunshine. Oh hum.

Any way I woke this morning and it was fine outside. I decided today would be the fateful day that I would do my first partial commute. Monday is bin day so after putting the bin out I packed a change of clothes in a carrier bag, shoes in another bag, and fruit plus sweets (for my colleagues at work – honest) in another.

Then it was round to loading the bike in the boot of my car after taking the front wheel off. I had to put the rear seats down of course and attempted to slide the bike in rear wheel first. No chance, the pedals would not fit through the tunnel into the passenger compartment – crap design by Rover!

In the end I popped it in forwards. Bit of a pain but it did go in. This took about 15 minutes. Ok I figured, as its now 8:30 and I don’t have to be in work until 10, wonders of flexitime I would be good to go as the journey to Lytham where I was to park up would take about 45 minutes at this time of day, 20 minutes tops to cycle the 2.75 miles from my mates house to work. Yup I measured it to check!

Because of road works on Amounderness Way at Thornton and to make me feel better about not passing work to ride back, I chose to drive down the sea front route through Bispham, Blackpool and St Annes.  Progress up to Norbreck Castle was reasonable for rush hour traffic. I then hit a slow bit. It took 20 minutes to go approximately 2 miles due to Blackpool council closing the promenade off at Bispham to remove some illuminations feature. Fancy doing this in rush hour! I finally got to Dave’s at 9:25! En route I noticed the smell of oil, which I attributed to having topped up my cars engine oil on Friday and not driving in between.

I parked up and proceeded in an orderly fashion to extract my bike and put the front wheel back on. As I unpacked the pannier I noticed that there was a pool of oil on the boot carpet. The container of engine oil had toppled over and the push on cap had opened up. Over a year of this container floating around in the boot and today I had it open of its own accord. I recon it happened when I put the bike in the boot.

Ok so bike assembled, I needed to load the pannier bags with my luggage, the clothes and shoes fitted inside no problem still inside their carrier bags, but for the life of me I could not get the bag of fruit and sweets in the pannier in one go. Time was getting on so I decanted the items into the pannier bag. Helmet on, high viz tabard on and gloves on, suited and booted – off I set.

The bike computer wasn’t working but hey no problem, I must have moved the sensor. One thing i forgot to mention was that in Fleetwood the roads and footpaths were clear, damp but clear. Yet here in Lytham there was ice on the roads and frost on the footpaths! Oh well i will have to cope – its too late now.

Warton street in Lytham is a busy two way street with parked cars on either side, so I decided to be car friendly and take the back alley all the way to the main road. I managed all 2.75 miles without pause, except for the traffic lights and roundabout on the way. The cycle paths were covered in frozen snow so I rode on the main road. Its a 50mph road but no-one honked or caused grief.

I got to work slightly flushed and toasty warm. As I road up the path to the office, Tim, one of my colleagues was in the foyer, on his mobile and congratulated me on my first ride to work. Woo hoo lol. I made it for 9:58, it had taken just under 20 minutes!

As the day wore on, I was contemplating the ride home. First time in the dark, busy road and 2 lanes of traffic filtering out of the car park onto the main road. I have to admit I wasn’t looking forward to it, on top of this the cycle path was likely to be icy as well. As it turned out the traffic at 6 o’clock was nowhere near as bad as it had been the last few weeks, most folks must have caught up with their flexi time.

I had done some additional research on the route and discovered that I could turn down Freckleton street and get to my car that way. So a plan was unfolding. Riding down the cycle lane on the main road, despite tabard and lights, I was a little uneasy. I reached the cycle path about a mile up the road by the Land Registry office and stayed on that until it reached Lytham then it was back on the road. The path was covered in a mixture of slush and ice I managed to stay on the bike so no worries.

Approaching Freckleton street I was overtaken by another cyclist who happened to be turning at the street before the one I wanted, but his bold sweep into the middle of the road to turn right. inspired I decided to turn right, a quick check behind, hand out I moved into the middle of the road, and turned down Nelson street. the remainder of the ride back to the car was indeed boring. I gave way to a car that was in my path down one of the back alleys. Apart from that it was all too easy and over too soon.

There – first one over. Here’s to the next

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