steve_sordy
Wedding Crasher
My one and only night ride nearly ended in disaster. My mate (well, he was then) invited me out on a night ride of about 7 miles. He leant me one of his bar lights and off we went. He had bar and a helmet light. With bar lights only, the first thing I learned was how your vision narrows down to the floodlit section in front of you. Look sideways and you see NOTHING! That makes sharp turns through the hedge a bit of a lottery. What's on the other side of the hedge gap? It could be a ditch, flat, mud, steps...... I soon learned to take wide turns to give the bar light chance to see where I was going. I then learned that the big black shadow on the ground could be shallow, deep or anything in between! A helmet light would have solved all those problems.
Anyway, we slowly made our way into the grounds of a stately home. Cruising down a gravel path we came across a pair of matching stone pillars. Having been to stately homes before and seen those types of pillar, I guessed that there was a flight of steps coming up. Seeing my mate's light dropping away confirmed it. I don't know why, but I followed exactly in my mate's tracks. And found myself rolling down a scaffolding plank! The steps had been removed and in their place was the plank. If I had gone slightly off track, or at an angle, I would have disappeared into a big hole, probably hitting my face on the edge of the other side before falling backwards onto the broken masonry at the bottom. It would not have been at all pretty. My mate had given me no warning whatsoever, showed no concern and I was more than a bit pissed off with him.
We actually did just over 14 miles that evening, which was when I discovered that he was no judge of distance either.
A few years before I knew him he'd had a serious crash on his motorbike and had been pronounced dead at the scene and then two more times after that! Six months in hospital, long, long, catalogue of injuries, told that he'd never walk again, etc. I believe that the head injuries altered his judgement of risk, in that he just did not see danger. It led to me parting company with him because he wanted me to ride what I saw as insanely dangerous stuff and took the piss when I refused. I bumped into him years later and sadly he was in a wheelchair - for life! He told me that he'd done it mountain biking; one DH course too many. Very sad indeed.
I've not been out at night on my mtb ever since. But then I'm retired and can ride in daylight. If I was a wage slave with a young family, then evenings may be the best time to ride. In which a decent set of lights would be a Godsend.
Anyway, we slowly made our way into the grounds of a stately home. Cruising down a gravel path we came across a pair of matching stone pillars. Having been to stately homes before and seen those types of pillar, I guessed that there was a flight of steps coming up. Seeing my mate's light dropping away confirmed it. I don't know why, but I followed exactly in my mate's tracks. And found myself rolling down a scaffolding plank! The steps had been removed and in their place was the plank. If I had gone slightly off track, or at an angle, I would have disappeared into a big hole, probably hitting my face on the edge of the other side before falling backwards onto the broken masonry at the bottom. It would not have been at all pretty. My mate had given me no warning whatsoever, showed no concern and I was more than a bit pissed off with him.
We actually did just over 14 miles that evening, which was when I discovered that he was no judge of distance either.
A few years before I knew him he'd had a serious crash on his motorbike and had been pronounced dead at the scene and then two more times after that! Six months in hospital, long, long, catalogue of injuries, told that he'd never walk again, etc. I believe that the head injuries altered his judgement of risk, in that he just did not see danger. It led to me parting company with him because he wanted me to ride what I saw as insanely dangerous stuff and took the piss when I refused. I bumped into him years later and sadly he was in a wheelchair - for life! He told me that he'd done it mountain biking; one DH course too many. Very sad indeed.
I've not been out at night on my mtb ever since. But then I'm retired and can ride in daylight. If I was a wage slave with a young family, then evenings may be the best time to ride. In which a decent set of lights would be a Godsend.
Last edited:
