Rouleur.....

On Saturday the day opened like an advent calendar window, a light sprinkle of frost, bright blue sky and a Robin, bright as a berry, red as a sunset and full of fire and fight.

I decided it was too cold for an early ride - and settled into a work project for the morning. By 2.00pm I was ready, the frost had long disappeared and the sun shone strong, enticing me from my hobbit-hole of a studio.

I quickly changed and set off, once moving the cold sliced into me but I knew I'd get warmer as the effort increased. There's a magnificent luminance to the landscape today, the clarity is enhanced by the strong sunlight and every tree looks stunning, shining with a brightness as fierce as the Robin's - it is super enhanced 3D, almost unreal.

On my way I pause next to a broken section of fence to gaze across the landscape. It's a soggy field of mossy turf with patches of longer sallow  scrub. I can here a woodpecker attacking one of the trees in the distance and there's a constant procession of small birds flickering in and out of the hedge. Nearby is all that remains of a pheasant, just the brown, barred wings and a gory stump that was once its body. There are hoof prints where the ground is softest and I wonder if any beasts have escaped through the hole in the fence.

When I get back my new magazine has arrived - I subscribed to 'Rouleur' before Christmas - it's long been on my list and I marvel at its production qualities. This is a magazine rarely seen in the shops, it has been created to celebrate the drama and beauty of road racing. It focuses on exquisite photography and writing that attempts to get under the skin of the great riders and theatre of road racing.

Here's a few photo's so that you might get the idea