Autumn is here. All through August we were warned, but could put off recognition. September makes it stick. The sun rises later, sets sooner, and slants in lower. The light goes from morning to afternoon with no long bask in noonday sun.
Very soon, dusk will fall too early for me to complete my full commute safely. Route shortening options all have drawbacks. I could start at the parking lot for Ocean State Job Lot ("The Blot"), but that only gets me a little over three miles. I save a little time, but loading and unloading the bike eats several minutes, nearly eliminating any time I saved by traveling at car speed rather than bike speed for those few miles. That leaves me with about 11 miles each way. Not bad for a week or two, before the darkness closes in while I'm still on Route 28. The highway isn't as bad as Elm Street, because there's a bit of a shoulder and sight lines are better. But people get dopey in the fall twilight. It's a lot harder to judge peripheral clearance in the darkness, so even a well-lighted cyclist is more at risk, especially if a driver is half lit.
Any options that involve parking closer to town also include driving extra distance off of the direct line to get to them. Now I'm really not saving much gas or wear and tear on the car at all. Most of these options require driving on dirt roads that might be rough. All of them require left turns off of the highway in the morning, with impatient drivers behind me and coming toward me. I might get a quick, clean left turn or I might be hanging there, all tensed up, waiting for a gap so I can clear the pipeline. I know that other drivers are supposed to be responsible and alert, but I hate to depend on them.
Most of the parking options in the woods along the way are awkward in some way. I have arranged parking at the driveways of friends and acquaintances, but it was always a little weird. There's a little parking area at Bryant Road and the Cotton Valley Trail, but particularly since the pandemic it's more heavily used. I might find no space or only a tight squeeze, when I'm on a tight schedule. And I burned out on the trail about that time, too. Tired of getting the stink eye and passive aggressive overtures from pedestrians and dog walkers who insist on more groveling than I'm inclined to do. I'd rather be out on the road where people are just trying to kill me, but it's less personal. So I was taking trail parking, but then riding on the road. I felt guilty about that, on top of the time, hassle, and extra driving involved. It isn't transportation cycling anymore when it doesn't reduce car use.
I feel some fear as the darkness closes in, not for myself when riding so much as for what I will find when I try to get back into full-time riding next spring. Age takes its toll whether you're paying attention or not. It progresses gradually for a couple of decades in which you can grumble about being in your forties or fifties. You know you're losing a little bit all the time. But then you hit a point where you're losing noticeable amounts as soon as you let up. You can't take a few weeks off and hop back in. You need to find ways to stay consistently active, and even then you will need to feel your way back in to see where the new limits have been set. My average speed has been fairly consistent for a couple of years, but a wee bit slower each year, and definitely taking more out of me. "Peak form" is not a summit anymore, it's just a shallower hole.
Your riding area may differ. When I lived in Maryland, I was able to use the bike year-round with only a day here or there when snow or ice made the riding a foolish and selfish indulgence. I had the best lights I could get, which were a feeble glow compared to the lights of today, but even the motor vehicles had dimmer lights, so it averaged out. Also, I rode on city streets much of the time, so the municipal lighting illuminated the general area. When I lived outside the city for a while, the commute traversed a few miles of darker highway, but it worked out. I was younger, the terrain was much easier, and the winters were mild.
There were also about 100 million fewer people in the country overall. Much of the population growth has been concentrated in the eastern megalopolis. I lived in it then, but north of it now. Maryland's population has grown by roughly two million since I settled there after college in 1979. Most of its growth occurred after I left. By comparison, New Hampshire's population has only grown by about 350,000 people since I arrived. On some days it feels like all of them are on my route, smokin' dope and texting, but I know that's an illusion. For the most part, smoking or not, they pass without incident. Back in Maryland I was on the receiving end of honks, swerves, spitting, thrown objects, profanity... all the stuff of a crowded society. It was only the 1970s and early '80s, so weapons were not discharged, and only very rarely shown. Mostly the drivers just used the car or truck itself to express themselves. It happens here as well, but much less often in my immediate area. I hear bad stories from not far away. It only takes one to ruin or end your life, but that's part of how we conduct ourselves on the road in any vehicle.
I have noted that more people seem to give way to their hostility under the cover of darkness. I have also noted, and continue to note, that the self-centered lighting on motor vehicles puts forth a blaze of light for the operator to see down hundreds of feet of darkened roadway, but that same blinding glare is aimed at oncoming vehicles with their own blinding glare, so that no one can see. Stick a cyclist into that, even with the best lights you can mount, and we're all lucky if we get through it without someone getting tagged. Cyclists have their own aggressive lighting, which can do more harm than good if they're not aimed carefully. No point blinding a driver if you actually want them to maneuver safely past you.
Headlights on motor vehicles have gotten weird in general with the high-intensity LEDs that supposedly project plenty of usable light while also forming weird shapes unlike any headlights of the ancient past. Navigation lights on ships and planes are meant to provide instant recognition of size and direction of travel. Lights on road vehicles should be no different, given how we're expected to travel at high speeds in tight formations. We're either operating close to another lane or two full of other speeding vehicles or in a single lane, perhaps with bicyclists and moped riders alongside. We have to make quick, accurate decisions. People drive too fast. Some people drive erratically.
Bike lighting can't equal the options available to boxier vehicles with four or more wheels to define the shape of them. Look at tractor-trailer rigs and even smaller trucks. They have lights all over them that define their shape. Passenger vehicles, even the super modern ones with weird lights, still conform to a general headlight/tail light/parking light configuration. Motorcycles and bicycles just don't have enough surface area to offer a large and definitive array.
Mere brightness is not a virtue. Motorcycles with super bright headlights are actually hurting themselves by blinding motorists. No one needs to see you from half a mile away. They need to see you from a few yards away, and be able to see the clear path to avoid you. This is true whether you have a motor or not. Visibility from further away helps somewhat to allow the driver of a larger vehicle to plan ahead, but not if it's so blinding that the driver loses the line when it matters the most.
Motorcycles with dual headlights run a risk of an oncoming or crossing driver estimating their size and distance wrong, seeing them as a larger vehicle, farther away. And super loud pipes just make people want to kill you. Factor that into your safety calculation.
When the commute ends I have to fit riding into the days when I'm not working, or into the margins of the days when I do. Because the sun comes up later, and motorists are going to work in the mornings, a dawn patrol training ride carries many of the same stresses as a commute, while providing none of the economic benefits. It's easy enough to suit up and get on the bike, but maybe not the best use of the time, since other forms of exercise provide more benefits in overall fitness and bone density. I get a lot more core and upper body exercise when I'm not hurrying out in the morning to make the bike ride to work and arriving home already fried from the ride at that end of the day. The rider is part of the machine. It -- you -- need maintenance just as much.
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