My new incentive for cycling in autumn

The beginning of autumn is beautiful. The leaves turn brown and when the sun shines through them they glint a golden colour as they hang onto the trees. But then they fall and everything looks and dead. The trees are bare and empty and when the wind blows through them the cold hits you hard and reminds you of winter. Autumn is pretty, but late fall is pretty sad. Nothing left to do but pick up the dead leaves from the ground and prepare for snow next.

Cycling through autumn though can be wonderful. The temperature drops with the leaves but so do the demands on your fitness and training and form. Riding slower and taking in the beautiful colours around you becomes easier at the back end of the cycling season. Until it gets too cold at all and you're spending too much time on a turbo. In a trace like state, starting at the wall in front of you. Going nowhere.

That is it, if you live in a country like Canada. If you don't take off to a training came somewhere warm. If you aren't a professional headed to some exotic training camp. But right now, in autumn, even the professionals ride like us. If only for a month. They're back at home now and riding at a speed we can comprehend and could even ride along with. Enjoy it, I tell myself, before they go south to places warm and I go south to the basement and that turbo.