Bring on the night - Dylan's Ride Blog

Despite the current warm weather, there's no getting away from the fact that summer has left the building. Gone are dusty trails and sitting outside the pub after the ride. In are gritty and muddy trails, and long sessions of bike cleaning and rebuilding afterwards. It's not all bad news though, there's no excuse to go into hibernation or swap handlebars for the remote just yet. Time to put some mud tyres on the bike, or better yet dust off the winter hack bike, charge your lights up and get out there for a night ride. I did just that today, for the first time since last winter. Suddenly, what was a boring hack around nettle and dog poo infested local trails, became a challenging ride, despite never going more than a few miles from York.

OK, so it's not quite the same as swiftly gliding along smooth dusty trails, with the promise of a beer outside the pub afterwards, but night riding has some attractions all of it own. Granted good lights cost a small fortune, and the cheaper lights seem to compromise on weight, brightness and endurance. But sitting inside dreaming of summer has it's own costs, which you'll only become too aware of when you start to ride again after a winter off the bike. Some of the things that make night rides fun are a) suprised looks from motorists who slow down in the face of a veritable wall of oncoming light, only to discover it's a bike, rather than a UFO,  b) how going down a muddy hill at 10 mph feels more like 25 mph as you wizz along a narrow tunnel of night, surrounded by pitch black. c) explaining to non bikers how your lights actually cost more than several 'halfords value' bikes. d) the slightly smug feeling that you get when you realise that 10 miles of mud, crashes and equipment destruction is actually more enjoyable what was on TV that evening.