A Cold, Dark Commute...

Total for this ride: 27.7
Total for this year: 2156.0 miles

Seems like forever since I've ridden... Been so long that I'd already put the bikes in the basement for the season. But with the weather man predicting a run of decent weather, I decided a couple days ago to haul out the Univega and make at least one more commute in to work.

I parked the truck in the usual commuter lot and hit the trail before sunrise.  And yes, it was cold... I heard 30 degrees on TV before I left the house, but that was the temp downtown.  I have no idea how cold it was out in the burbs.  Maybe not quite as cold as some of those rides I made back in March, but it was still cold.  I was glad I went with four layers.

The ride in was pretty uneventful.  It was sad to see that the trees are all bare again.  There's still water in the canal, but it probably won't be there much longer.

The ride home was a little more interesting... I left the office at 4:30.  The sun was still up, but just barely.  It would set by the time I hit the canal towpath, and it would be dark by the time I got back to the truck.  But, being the smart guy that I am, I planned ahead and brought both my head and tail lights.  Good to go.

That is, until I got to the corner of John and Jefferson, and while waiting for the signal to cross, realized that my headlight was out.  Great... I didn't want to ride all the way back to the office to get fresh batteries, but I definitely wouldn't be able to ride home without the light.  Fortunately, I happened to have two spare batteries in my rack trunk.  I keep a set on hand in case the GPS runs low.  But the light takes four batteries.  So I had to cannibalize the two out of the GPS.

It's a good thing I did.  The skies were perfectly clear today, so once the sun went down it got dark fast.  By the time I got to Schoen Place, there wasn't even any twilight left.  I decided that I'd never ridden when it was that dark before.  Because if I had, I would have known that my headlight is woefully inadequate for those conditions.  It was barely bright enough to keep me on the trail, let alone see if there was a deer or bear or whatever up ahead.  If some obstacle appeared, I'd have a couple of seconds to react.  But, luckily, the wildlife was on its best behavior so I made it back to the truck without incident.