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02/06/07
Moonlight
Filed under: general
Posted by: The Cyclofiend @ 4:25 pm

If you aren’t a steady reader of Kent Peterson’s blog, y’oughta be.  It’s always interesting and sometimes it’s some of the best cycling writing you are likely to come across. This one caught me recently. In the prose, there’s a beautiful passage that notched immediately into my cycling mantras;

“I am looking beyond my lights, a trick that has become a habit. A wise
man taught me that to see in the dark, you must look in the dark. He
learned this in London, in the war, and taught me this on a still and
peaceful night, much like this one, many years later and several years
ago.”

I read that last Friday, and last night (Monday) on my way home from work, kept notching down the power of my headlight and trying to look into the dark.

“…to see in the dark, you must look in the dark.”

From whatever confluence of jet streams and pressure systems, the temperature had edged upwards all day.  I had ridden in without a windshell for the first time in recent memory, then spent the day inside, nibbling a couple clif bars and grumping at suppliers and the computer screen for the better part of the day.  By day’s end, I was done with it and just wanted to get home. Wheeling my bike back outside, I recalled that the dogs had asked for more snacks, and so needed to loop back to the pet food store. Once outside, two more things became clear - it was still light and it was warm. Granted, I had skipped out a few minutes early, but it was close enough to 6 pm.  Some cars still hadn’t turned on their headlights (though they really should have) and the skies held a luminescence that boded of spring. You have to honor an evening like that.

Dumped some packages through the late drop at the Post Office and then picked up the scooby-snacks.  Turning for home, I decided on an indirect return, and looped around the long way, quickly rolling away from the downtown lights, pokey and indecisive motorists and a two-cop-car-party with some poor person at a traffic stop. The illumination faded and streetlights became sparse, finally stringing along the road no longer. Just me and my Niterider, spinning the silent fixed gear of the Dawes.

I like riding at night, but have always felt as though it kind of screws you up - too frequently, it makes you amped and  twitchy, as you focus on the pool of light you brought along. It seems to mess up cornering as well, as your view is too close and you end up reacting, rather than becoming part of the sweep of the roadway. But, as the overhead lamps became destinations rather than constant companions, Kent’s words rose up and reminded me where to put my focus.

The road climbed a bit, then curved and dropped, and I tried my best to nudge my eyes forward, up to that place beyond the lighted asphalt. As it found details in the dark, I reached up and pushed the button, dropping the light down to 10 watts. and when that felt too strong, to the 5 watt level. The light became a subtle assistant, alerting me to road hazards and expansion cracks.  But, the comfort came from looking beyond it, until the early evening sky seemed impossibly bright, and I hummed along feeling curiously protected in the dark roadway. 

I had to punch it up a couple times, once to make sure an oncoming vehicle wouldn’t decide to take the sports car line through the turns and again so as not to scare the Gatorade out of a solitary runner I overtook. But afterwards, the button got pushed, the light got balanced and I stretched my vision towards that which I could not see.

“…to see in the dark, you must look in the dark.”

Thanks Kent!

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