So I’m up at 05:30 so that I can arrive in Galway early enough so that I can get a good spin in before Sunday lunch.

On the outskirts of Galway City I see two cyclists clipping in 200m ahead. ‘Come on you’re late! They’re 3 minutes up the road ahead of us’

I am about to shout that I’m not the guy they’re waiting for but their backs are turned and they are spinning out the road to Moycullen.

Twenty minutes later my vision is narrowing and I am wiping a mixture of sweat, spit, snot, blood and what I think is lung off my lips as I struggle to keep the wheel of a guy in front. The guy in front I now believe to be Eoghan Clifford (the wonders of Strava). I have he to thank for dragging me up to the main group of the Galwy Bay cycle club, whose club spin I was now on.

In the thirty kilometre chase up the road I learned one thing; The Dew Drop Inn is on Cross Street.. I know this because that information is displayed on the rear of the Galway Bay CC cycle shorts and my face was never more 3m away from it the whole way from Dangan to Oughtarard.

From then on the spin got easier but wetter. There were > 40 guys on the spin and they were all very friendly and helpful but fast.

So much for easy winter miles …