Left work at about 5pm yesterday, determined to do at least 40. I took the Tricross; its fourth consecutive outing.
A bit cold, but not windy. I wrapped up warm. Decided to go east for 20 miles or so, then come back. An eminently simple plan. I went out through Coalville, Belton, Stanford, Buron on the Wolds as far as Six Hills Lane where after 23 miles, I turned back. But I came back the old way through Wymeswold and Rempstone, then closer to home through Peggs Green and Coleorton.
I pursued a belt & braces strategy of powerful lights on the bike in addition to the back / chest lighting harness. Both worked well. I put the bike front light (actually a powerful LED torch) on flashing mode initially, only to realise after 30 seconds or so that it was trying to communicate with other road users via the medium of Morse code. Apparently the flashing mode is actually SOS mode.
The only bummer with the chest / back lights is that you can’t actually tell if the back light is working. There’s no reason to assume it isn’t if the front one is on, but all the same you never know for sure.
I missed a trick, actually. I used my Garmin Forerunner to track the ride. If I’d used the Instinct I could have checked the time and distance done without having the chest light on; it has a neat feature that lights up the display when you tilt your wrist in the hours of darkness.
Unfortunately an unexpected light rain started to descend with about 12 miles to go. One reason I like cycling in the dark, miles from home is that it flirts with the boundaries of my comfort zone, but being rained on at the same time is definitely an excursion outside it. Another enjoyable run out spoiled by weather.
Still – 46.00 miles, a decent boost to the October distance count. Just noticed that, despite being mostly a different route, the homeward distance was exactly the same as the outbound distance.