The Dark Stallion
First night-time commute home
Refreshing your mind of the problem I've had with the battery and head lamp causing the bike to stall and the STILL missing one of two rear bulbs and you may have some appreciation why I wasn't really looking forward to the first dark commute. Add to this the poor riding experience (and even poorer style) I have and you may appreciate further why I SHOULDN'T have looked forward the the first dark commute!
Anyway, I was slightly encouraged by the practice ride out to Droxford the other night and I had a good mental image, an artist's impression if you like, of what the A32 would look like. I've recreated this for you below:
Artist impression of the road at night by PatThe reason I had a night journey at all was to watch a truck hitch up to a trailer at work where a building has been commenced threatening to land-lock the trailer like a bloke building a kit-car in his kitchen and then realising he can't get it out through the door or the french windows!
Anyway, the operation went on a while and I didn't leave work before 9pm - and it was certainly truely dark. I picked up some much needed fuel where the dash-display showed I had just 22-miles left and I needed 50. We crawled through Farnborough to get to the Aldershot Tesco forecourt; the only Pay at the Pump station I know of in the area (saves having to take all your kit off just to pay) and with Shadowfax's bladder filled around £22 later we headed off for the commute.
Once on the A331 things weren't too bad. The dipped beam was fine dashing about the orange street light glow but was obviously wanting by the time we got up to speed past the BP near the big junction. I followed the other vehicles sapping what road picture I could from their own lighting.
Once through the lights we headed for the first roundabout and then into the open dual carriageway toward Bentley. Now I suffered. The road picture is so short the screen needs to be right down to give any hope of actually seeing anything on the tarmac, which to be honest is too late to react to at anything above 30mph. As it was I bravely crawled along at about 60mph but as there was little of the usual visual reference cornering seemed harder to judge. This was proven more acute once onto the A32 and progress could only be made with full-beam, which is really excellent but has to be re-dipped when vehicles approach.
Once settling on entry to Farringdon a bunch of bikes went past the other way (from the Wednesday Loomise' meet, I guess). Most of them clearly had very raised dipped beams and the dazzling was pretty intense. I ended up limping along at about 30mph again just to keep some reference between the centre white lines and side of the road as the bend sweeps slowly but was difficult to pick out in the dark contrasting with their lights.
So, I've modified the artist's impression of what the A32 would look like:
A32 at Night - impression of the actual scene!A badger wouldn't need to practice any act of campouflage and concealment to nab me under these conditions and if the squirrels had still been awake even the wooded straight toward Privet would have left me open to their nut-lobbings.
I found my whole under-developed riding style fell appart raggedly under lights, whether in full or dipped beam. My judgement of distance was lessened and where the ripples in the road can bounce the wheels at odd angles - each of which I know so well - caught me off-guard in places.
On the exit of Warnford another biker on some naked farty but loud bike zoomed up to my rear with an intollerably bright lamp in my mirrors adding real sparkle to my already exciting evening. I slowed - partly as I was dazzled and partly to stop getting annoyed. He went to pass on the long straight but then hesitated as a car appeared the quarter-mile ahead; was he scared he couldn't pass or was he checking out if Shadowfax was from a Police stable? I don't know, but he didn't pass until I indicated that I insisted he should around the field-bend and he zipped off toward the double-S's at Waterworks with an even smaller lamp image than I have. I think his lights were so skyward he'd left nought to see the road with. His brake lights became pretty bright, too, when he discovered just how tight those corners can be...
Once home I was quite cold across my chest where the wind must have threaded through all the Behring zips. The temperature had dropped to 10-dgrees (my chilly threshold, anyway) and mist had formed along the route.
Action Points
- Hand adjust front lamps to raise them 2-degrees
- Source and fix rear lamps (as a pair)
- Check out the heated grips don't flatten the battery
- Review warm kit for winter months
- Stop being afraid of the dark
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