Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Dirty Little Secret

Stop on Way to the Launch to Meet Mark
Mark and I have been doing weekday morning rides all summer. That's a 6:00am departure from the boat launch.  Home before 7:30, showered, and at work by 8:30. A full day of action before most people finish their first cup of coffee.  My dirty little secret.

But it's late August and the summer solstice is a distant memory, the sun is heading south, and the days are getting shorter.  It is pretty dark at 6:00am.  So we were considering pushing start time back to 6:15am. The extra 15 minutes of sleep wouldn't hurt either.

Then somehow I got turned around in my thinking.  I got silly.  Don't avoid the dark. Embrace it by nudging the start time in the other direction. To something like 5:30am. Then I could start riding in the pitch dark and finish in daylight.  Never done that before.  I pitched it and there was some head shaking and head scratching, but I knew.  It had to be done.

So I did it.
Still Dark on The Bonus Loop

Alarm went off at 5:00am.  Breakfast, coffee, and morning constitutional.  I rolled at 5:35am under a starlight sky. Very peaceful.  Saw some critters in the woods, pairs of eyes staring at me from the woods. Brilliant stars overhead.  Rode to the boat launch around 6:00am to pickup Mark, and we rolled the Double Bonus Loop (still with lights), then on the way back home we burst out into full daylight at the top of The Sole Trail.  After 90 minutes in the relative dark, it was like an explosion of light and warmth to cap off our ride.

Night to light.  Never did it that way before, but I'm know I'll do it again.  Maybe even earlier.

Chris

"If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong."
     - unknown

1 comment:

  1. You and Mark have a dirty little secret? Yikes.

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