You Light Up My Life or Splicer: Outlaw Biker
Friday night I came “home” (to P a u l’s place) a bit later than I expected, and it was dark. I think it was about 10pm because I explored Orinda a little bit and the last showing of the movie I wanted to see was just about to start and the workers at the Starbuck’s were putting chairs up on the tables. After looking around a bit I headed on to El Sobrante. I was dreading it a bit because I’d have to take San Pablo Dam Road, and at night that road is pretty dark. It’s pretty dark and my headlight on the hybrid bike is broken. It’s a road that has no lights on most of it, and the mounting bracket for my rear taillight is broken.
So basically I have no business riding that bike at night. The trouble is, the racing bike has never had a headlight on it. And I think I had some reason for not riding the racing bike. I don’t remember what that reason might have been, but I remember having a reason of some sort.
Riding either of those bikes is bad enough in the city, where there are streetlights everywhere. But riding down a mountain road in the middle of the night with no streetlights and no bike-mounted lights and no reflectors, that’s just crazy.
So I held my breath as I rode past the cop, parked on the side of the road looking for speeders or reckless drivers. This was less than a mile out from the Orinda BART station. A couple minutes later I saw flashing lights and tensed up again. The cop was pulling over a motorist and they both passed me before the automobile driver pulled into a turnout. As I passed, the officer was getting out of his car. He pointed his flashlight at me and shouted “lights!”
I continued on, at points riding blind. Anytime a car came the opposite direction it was a struggle to make out where the side of the road actually was. Even if a car didn’t hit me, it would have been Very Bad Indeed to fly off the side of the road. When there was no car in sight, I had nothing but the faint vision of the white stripe on the road to tell me what direction to go, and so I’d stay on the left side of it, not knowing how wide the shoulder/bike lane was at any given point.
Riding San Pablo Dam Road at night with no lights was not the smartest thing I ever attempted.
I was about a quarter-mile from P a u l’s place when the cop caught up with me and pulled me over. I explained the broken bracket and that I lived in the city where there are streetlights everywhere and apologized and told him how scary it was careening down the hill blind and promised that I’d get it all fixed the next day. I pointed out to him that I was within sight of my destination, and he let me go with a little lecture. Actually, I’m sure that he never intended give me more than a lecture, since he didn’t ask for my drivers license or anything.
So Saturday while I was in the City, I stopped in at Valencia Cyclery. $120 later, I’m the proud owner of a NiteRider Trail Rat 2.0 10 Watt headlight. There was a 12 Watt model for sale at $85 that was actually two headlights mounted side by side, but the battery was much heavier and was a NiCad rechargeable rather than a NiMH, which means that I’d have to be more careful about when nd how often I recharged the battery.
I also switched back to the racing bike. The racing bike’s rear blinker mount is intact, and the hybrid has some mechanical problems that need resolving.
Last night I ride in to Orinda BART, turned on my lights, and rode off. That headlight is steady and strong; I’m very very pleased with its performance. I could see everything ahead of me way on down the road. Instead of the hour it took me to get home from BART Friday night, I covered the distance in 29 minutes, averaging 18mph and topping out at 39mph. None of that is super-fast considering that it’s downhill almost all the way, but if you take into account that it was nighttime and I was naturally riding a bit conservatively regardless of the headlight, I’d say I made darn good time.
Today or tomorrow I think I’ll try riding up to Orinda. See how that works.
