I could begin this post with a plenitude of pithy aphorisms about the nature of fear, the effect it has on the soul and the fine line between audacity and insanity. I could philosophise about how the highly evolved ego can dominate control the primal instincts of the id, supressing the fight or flight instinct and standing tall against adversity. None of this would hide the fact that I was so frightened that I nearly shat myself on Sunday night.

The day had started when I opened the curtains to be greeted by several inches of snow but by lunchtime it had melted and there was hardly any trace of it. Aware that the forecast said that it would snow overnight and that it would be icy in the morning, I decided that it would be more prudent to do the 100 mile commute north a day early and make the most of the clement conditions that prevailed in the afternoon - especially if the traffic on the M1 was likely to be bad the following day. I left home in the early evening, about an hour before it was due to get dark and my run was fairly clear until I joined the motorway near Northampton and was greeted by the massed hordes of Barnsley FC supporters heading north back to their holes.

After a brief stop at the Watford Gap services (conveniently located exactly half way between Nottingham and my home) I set off for the last leg of the journey. It was dark by now and the traffic was quite heavy and ten minutes after I left the service area, it started to snow. Being April, it wasn’t going to settle which is only ever a good thing but it was a minor blizzard and was coming down quite heavily. By this point, you’re probably wandering where this is going and what the problem was. Well, let me add a pertinent bit of information that may make things more clear:

I was on a motorbike.

I have never been so frightened in my life as I was riding along at 60mph on a traffic-filled motorway, in the dark during a heavy snowstorm. Every 10 seconds, snow was building up on my visor and I had to keep trying to wipe it off. My glasses started to steam up so I had to pull onto the hard shoulder, take them off and try riding without them. Then there was the cold. My god it was cold! A matter not helped by the wind chill which definitely put the temperature well below zero.

The fact that I’m sitting here now, writing this means that I survived the journey. I made it to the next services, shivering, covered in ice and with a bike that was also feeling the effects of freezing weahter. I was very tempted to book a night in the hotel there, despite being only 20 miles or so away from my destination. Fortunately the storm subsided a little and I pushed on and got to the flat eventually.

I like riding my bike. I even quite enjoy going on the motorway. But I can safely say that I never, ever want to have an experience like that again.