This article is part of a series called ‘A love letter to…’, where Cycling Weekly writers pour praise on their favourite cycling items and share the personal connection they have with them.
The below content is unfiltered, authentic and has not been paid for.
'I'm not in love, so don't forget it, it's just a silly phase I'm going through.' Did the great 10cc, a band hailing from my own town of Stockport, also know what it was like to be in the early hedonistic weeks of winter riding with you, a pair of heated winter cycling gloves and me someone suffering with Raynaud's syndrome?
We've had several dates, for a few hours at a time. It's been great, you keeping me warm, stopping me from suffering from cold hands.
I now look forward to cycling through the arctic blasts together, but it doesn't mean I can't totally live without you now, I think. Maybe. I'm not sure.
I know I'm still dealing with the years of being let down by others, who promised a world of warmth, yet left me feeling numb and hurting. I've been yearning for something to take away the pain, and give me back feeling.
So when you arrived, I was smitten. I wrote and told everyone about how I'd worn a pair of Sealskinz Nordic Skiing gloves on the bike every winter, but you were about to change all that. And you are delivering on all that you promised.
You are, quite literally, the glove to my hand.
When I turn you on, your electricity reaches to the tips of my fingers, leaving my hands tingling with heat. I know that people envy me when I'm hand in hand with you, giving you and me admiring glances.
You're helping me find my cycling mojo again, and I can feel myself falling back in love with cycling, but, in the words of 10cc...
I'm not in love
When you are high, you're so hot, you can't handle the heat, and it's over far too soon, and leaves me still wanting more.
Then there are the times when you've shunned me, not shown me warmth at all. Jealous perhaps that I've not elaborately alluded to you being with me when at a café, so you've decided to do your own thing.
I know that I probably pushed you out the way, I had temporarily found warmth in a coffee mug.
I get that you have buttons, and they can be easily pressed. But when you do that and leave me out in the cold all the way home, I don't know whether you really are committed to this relationship either.
I get confused when you've had enough, it's hard with all the guess work for when you need to spend time alone to recharge.
You remind me too much about my feet, suffering the same plight, but fending for themselves without a tender heated embrace, left to deal with the inevitable post-ride chilblains alone.
I've even had a couple of messages from riders, saying I should think about the alternatives, and that there are others out there.
Yet I know that, as soon as I give you time to recharge, once we're out of the house with the wind in my face and on my hands, it'll be just like the first time all over again.
I'll get cold, you'll jump into action, and make me feel like I could ride forever through the icy temperatures. We'll be inseparable.
I'm confused. I need more time. Could lust turn to love? Can we move on from your coldness once we've been too hot together?
I'm not in love
Just because you heated me up, don't get me wrong, don't think you've got it made
If I wear you, don't make a fuss
I'm already planning our next date, just the three of us...
I'm not in love
I'm not in love
