UFO Bike

Considering how long I've been riding, you'd think I wouldn't make rookie mistakes.  I did tonight, though.  I had forgotten to charge my headlight, and it went out about three miles into my dirt ride.  A full charge should last about four hours.  I thought I had used up only about an hour from the most recent charge, but I guess I had used more juice than I remembered.  Having two headlights would help.  I did have a second one, but it got lost during RAAM.  Everything became community property then despite having my name on my stuff.  Regardless, I really need to get into the habit of charging my lights after every ride.

My headlight went out on this same route several weeks ago.  That time I thought I was using a freshly charged light, but I hadn't fully connected it to the charger.  D'oh!  I was about 3/4 of the way through that ride and called Robert to come pick me up.  Tonight, however, I was determined not to bother him again, particularly since he was in the middle of a trainer workout back at the house.  Thus, tonight was an exercise in problem solving.

Fortunately, there is almost no traffic on my dirt routes, which is why I feel comfortable riding them at night in the first place.  I moved my taillight from the back of my bike to the front.  The steady, red light on the brightest setting gave me just enough light to find my way.  It reminded me of going to the Nightcrawlers Program at Zoo Atlanta some years ago.  My group spent the night at the zoo and got to see some really cool behind-the-scenes things.  When we visited the reptile house, the zookeeper gave us red flashlights to observe the animals, explaining that red light is much less irritating to them than regular white light.

I rode carefully, partly because the path was dim and partly because Jordan Road, my nighttime dirt road ingress/egress, was graveled fairly recently.  There are still some significant sections where the gravel hasn't settled in well, making for a rather challenging ride even with a fully charged headlight.  Thankfully, I navigated the treacherous sections safely.

As I turned off of Jordan Road onto the paved highway leading back to my house, I heard my neighbor's dogs, as usual.  They always bark and sometimes chase me, but fortunately they have never been truly aggressive.  Tonight, with my freaky front red light, I must have looked like some kind of UFO bike.