I’m sad, really sad, according to several of my work colleagues, for enjoying cycling so much. I prefer to use the description obsessed, as I simply can’t get enough of jumping on my bike and heading off on a nice road loop for a couple of hours, or getting back home completely filthy after thrashing my Inbred around the local mud bath.

However I do believe my fellow employees may have a point, not in the respect that I should be getting smashed every weekend and chasing easy women around nightclubs rather than going out on my bike, but suffering from SAD, or seasonal affective disorder as its known. I simply have the winter blues.

Now I have experienced depression and anxiety several times in the past, the latest being throughout most of 2008 for various reasons, and it's crap, at times simply losing all drive to do absolutely anything. People become an irritation, work a chore, even waking up in the morning requires a larger than normal effort, and so it carries on until someone else notices, or you crack and simply give up on life. Luckily for me I decided to do something about it and headed to the docs, amidst all of the talk about prescription drugs to balance the chemicals swishing about my brain, and counselling sessions, came the most simple, and important piece of advice:

‘Keep doing the things that you enjoy’

Somewhere along the line this effective method of controlling my mood had become lost, clouded by all the negative thoughts I was having at the time, but what could I do about it? Well I was already riding every weekend with my friend Stuart, regularly heading out into the back of beyond on the mountain bikes, and even if I didn’t realise it at the time, this was a massive help. Escaping from the world for a few hours did me wonders, but I needed more, and it was then something clicked, why no go back to my club, the Ythan Cycling Club, and begin racing again?

I trundled towards the regular starting point at 6pm, Tuesday night, on my steel Merida road bike with a substantial amount of nervousness, this soon evaporated as I spotted some familiar faces from when I used to ride with the YthanCC some 6 years previous, ‘hello stranger’ I was greeted as I removed my helmet and they recognised my blonde mop of hair, pleasantries were exchanged and then it was down to business.