A friend was talking about a theory that the mind can have a big impact on the body. In particular, some niggles in the body can be a result of mental issues. The example they used was stress – manifesting in the form of back pain. The back may be perfectly strong, but to deal with the mental stress, the body deals with it by having pain in the back; furthermore it is claimed releasing this stress in the back is actually a good thing.

If you have have a fall, and injury your knee, it’s pretty certain what the cause is. But, if you wake up the day after a ride, and find a mysterious injury / pain – then it may be some mental cause – often unconscious, and not an underlying physical cause.

I’m no expert on this kind of thing, and I’m sure there are doctors who would disagree – but it is interesting. In particular, I’m sure there have been times when I’ve gained some kind of minor niggle, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because the enforced rest did a lot to improve my long-term form.

One thing I should add, when I have had persistent niggles in knees – Physiotherapy did a  very good job in getting it better.

I also often think about to my early 20s, where I was injured for several years – meaning I only took up cycling in the late 20s. From a cycling point of view, this was hugely significant. If I’d taken up cycling 10 years earlier, my cycling career might have been quite different. I don’t have any regrets though because, in this lifetime, I am glad I didn’t become a professional cyclist.

Colds

The other interesting thing is that I nearly always get a cold in November / December. During the racing season, I try to hold off any cold. But, once the season is over, I let go of any resistance and almost invite a cold. It’s the best time of the year to have one. A week off the bike, and I’m enjoying it; it’s amazing how much time you have when you don’t cycle 250 miles a week.

It doesn’t always work. I’ve had inopportune colds, just when I don’t want it. But, I think there is something in the idea we can have a mental influence over the body – either positive or negative. My feeling is that we are only just touching the surface of this mind-body link. I’m sure in hundreds of years time, people’s awareness of this will be greatly expanded and we will gain greater intuition and ability to influence this link.

But, at the moment, it’s back to the Vicks vapour rub and snotty handkerchiefs – and dreaming of cycling up Col du Tourmalet in the Pyranees next summer.

The racing season presents many dilemmas – how many days rest do you need in between intervals – should you do intervals at 100% or 99%?

The winter season presents a very different kind of dilemma – not least – how often are we to clean our winter training bike?

There are two main schools of thought in this direction. The first school suggests religiously cleaning the bike after every ride, with at least once a week complete strip down and degrease.

The second school of thought suggests the best interval for cleaning the winter bike is roughly once a year in early April before retiring the winter bike to the loft.

Those who follow the first school of daily cleaning are either professional bike riders or those who actually do very little winter training. They may pop out on the roads, should the weather be suitably inviting, but generally they prefer to keep their bike out of the wind and mud. No point risking anything when its 5 degrees outside and winter slime covers the road.

Unfortunately, most of us are more likely to fall in between the two. We don’t quite want to commit to cleaning the bike after every ride, but once you put it off once, it’s very hard to get round to ever cleaning it – because you know within 12 hours it will be just as muddy as it is already. So you rationalise it by saying, well I might as well leave it another day. I’ll clean it when there is a week of dry, sunny weather forecast (i.e. never). Instead, we just learn to grow accustomed to the muddy winter bike; it starts to become a badge of our ‘old school’, cycling in any weather kind of mentality. It’s a strange logic and hopefully one that doesn’t spill over into personal hygiene. Though, I did have a school friend who claimed after three weeks his hair would start cleaning itself. We were a bit dubious, though we never got too close to inspect for ourselves.

Perhaps that is the next development in bike technology, forget electronic 12 speed which no-one needs – what about the self-cleaning winter bike with automatic greasing and repair maintenance? I’d buy one of those.

The problem with writing this piece is that the more I write about cleaning my winter bike, the greater the growing guilt about the layers of mud on my own down tube. It’s really not that hard to clean a bike, and it does give a wonderful sense of satisfaction when we rediscover the frame colour is a bright blue rather than a muddy brown. It’s just fortunate that I’m going to go out on  a winter training ride in a couple of hours – I might as well leave it until I get back….

Related

• Winter training rides

At the moment, I’m riding without a plan – and it’s quite an enjoyable experience.

During August, September and October it was all tightly structured intervals. November is the complete opposite, unstructured and no intervals. As mentioned previously, I find myself riding around at 15-16mph wondering how on earth do you manage to come back from a ride with an average of over 17 mph.

Riding around Otmoor, I saw a mini chain gang of four riders hammering it on a late November afternoon. The guy on the front was on a time trial bike, giving it some welly. I felt no desire to latch on the end.

I kept my steady pace. But after three weeks of nothing more than level II, I was curious to remember what it was like to go hard up a hill. On the way up to Brill from Oakley I decided to give it a go. For the first five seconds it was a bit of a buzz as you remember the speed and effort of cycling fast up steep hills. But, after 10 seconds it was also a reminder of the great effort needed; it felt painfully slow. I dragged the winter bike up in a respectable time, but it was nothing to get too excited about. Racing feels along way away.

In a way, winter is a good balance to the preceding months. It’s like slow recovery rides are a good balance to hard intervals. Similarly a couple of months of just accumulating miles is a good balance to the work dedicated on the top end. Usually in January, I might consider different training methods, and more higher end work. But, that is always much easier to do when you have a good solid aerobic base.

Having said that – a good day of weather yesterday encouraged me to give my summer bike – the Trek Madone a final farewell fling before winter retirement in the loft. I’m not sure if it was the bike, weather or I was just bored of plodding. But I kept a very respectable pace all the way to Henley and back, averaging a very commendable November average speed of 18mph for the 55 miles. It still gave me time to think about the National Hill Climb splits. I’m not sure which is most impressive, how slowly I went up first half or how quick I went up the second half.  As Jimmy Hill used to say on the BBC Match of the day – It’s a game of two halves, Gary’.

I am in real mile munching mode at the moment. nearly 800 miles for November already and it doesn’t really feel like I’m training. Though I’ve been going very slowly up hills, I still can’t wait for next years hill climb season!

There is a virtual prize for any local rider who can identify the locations of the two roads. I would struggle and I took the photos