Manchester weather exported for Milan-San Remo

It was great to see the season opening monument at the weekend 'la Primavera' Milan-San Remo. Thought Ian Stannard was excellent value for his warming sixth place.

Milan-San Remo started at White City Retail Park this year

Interesting that they managed to import some Lancashire spring weather for the race which usually takes place in the warming sun.
Its often easy to slip into the mindset that pro cyclists are a bunch of lily-livered wooses with their winter training camps in Majorca and as much pasta as you can wave a colander at.
Fact is, there can be few tougher sporting tests than riding, at race pace, in conditions like this.
Chapeau! 

Northeast 4 or 5, occasionally 6, snow, poor

I love the Shipping Forecast. I love its brevity,The codes which you need to decipher in order to understand what the devil is being spoken about. It’s a real window into another world. A world of blokes who stink of fish, live in places like Grimsby and who hoover up anything that’s living out of the sea.
But this is not a rant about marine conservation, there are other places to find that. Without wanting to sound too Daily Express, its about the bloody weather. 
I wonder if anyone has developed a mathematical model for the additional effort required to ride into a headwind of, say, 10 mph? How does heat effect the average cyclist?
Maybe it doesn't work like that and I'm just talking sh*te but it could be used to develop a cycling equivalent of the Shipping Forecast: the Cycling Forecast in all likelihood.
It could be broadcast at around 7.30am on Sunday mornings on Radio 4. Only the dedicated few would hear it and understand its content.

Rock all sunshine

I bet there are more people out on bikes than are out in British territorial waters looking for the final few dozen cod in Cromarty.
I can but dream. I'll have to make do with steeling myself before gingerly pulling the corner of the curtain back.

New cycling specific rain forecast for Manchester

Cycling in Manchester and the north west in general makes you very aware that we have weather in the UK.  I admit, I do obsess about the weather and have various forecast sites bookmarked on my computer.
One of my favourite, and most accurate in my experience, is metcheck.
Its dead easy to use if you a. know where you are and, b. can type.
They have just added a function which allows you to select your activity and it provides a tailored forecast detailing those elements of the forecast which are pertinent to said activity.
So, for cycling you get wind speed, a meaningless UV index and something called the SweatIndex.

How much is it going to rain this weekend?

Although the Sweat-dex doesn't appear to be operational yet, the wind and rain volume counts are useful. It's easy to understand and you can tell, at a glance, how wet you are going to get, how intense the rain will be and at which angle the rain will be battering you from.
Good stuff I reckon.
Ride safe