Night riding

[Blue Hills]

Give us a shout!

You fancy meeting up? Yes i'd be up for it - and the spoons beer festival is about to start.

I always thought you were in abingdon but now i see that deal makes an appearance. You do get around! Should i pm you?

 

[Wobblers]

Night time is for burglars and coppers. Your primary sense is sight so use the night for sleeping and get out in the daytime when you can see the wonderful views.

There's plenty to see with a pair of dark adapted eyes. Stars and meteors. The land illuminated by moonlight. The coast delineated by streetlights in contrast to a pitch black sea beyond. Bats, badgers and deer. None of which you'll see in daytime.

And it's not just sight: there's the sudden and unexpected temperature changes. The awesome stillness, that feeling of being the only person awake in the world. The furtive rustling of small creatures in the undergrowth [1]. If you restrict yourself to just daytime cycling, you're missing out on a whole marvelous world.


[1] Or possibly werewolves. But I'd hope that werewolves would be more stealthy.

 

[Hill Wimp]

You fancy meeting up? Yes i'd be up for it - and the spoons beer festival is about to start.

I always thought you were in abingdon but now i see that deal makes an appearance. You do get around! Should i pm you?

Yes

 

[Heltor Chasca]

As mentioned upthread I did the Dartmoor Ghost night Audax earlier in the year. At the end of the month I’m doing the sister ride, the Dartmoor Devil. In daylight!

That’s going to be weird to actually see where I rode. Or perhaps Count Heltor Chasca may have met his end.

 

[Blue Hills]

Yes

will pm you later or tomorrow.

 

[growingvegetables]

... that feeling of being the only person awake in the world.

One small addition, however.

If you happen to be on a quiet, rough-surfaced country lane, and hear the roar of a 4x4 approaching, being driven at speed ... but there's not a light to be seen for miles? You are NOT the only person awake

Useful hint, follks ... get the hell off the track and into the verge!

There's guys "lamping". Such feckwits make SUVs on urban streets look like saints. Barrelling over the country side, only switching on lights when they think they've seen an animal, to blast it to kingdom come.

And, though I hate to admit it, a damned good reason for wearing something luminescent/reflective/whatever - just as long as the lampers see more than eyes glinting in tyhe dark!

You have been warned. Only time I've been genuinely scared ****less, riding at night.

 

[Crankarm]

Head torches make for a crap bike light. Aside from the grief to which TMN alludes, the human brain needs a decent separation between the light source and the eye to be most effective and to provide then best depth/distance perception.

Cyclists who insist on using head torches as lights are a f*&%!^g menace!