To cut a long story short. Nathan *had* to cycle to school today, and *had* to remain late after
school, which necessitated a journey of cycling home along several miles of unlit country lane in
the pitch black - with a serious amount of fog, as it turned out.
The plan of action was that I'd cycle to school to meet him at the time he was coming out, so we'd
cycle home together, working on the theory that two cyclists lit up like Christmas trees and with
more reflective kit than the mirror on Hubble, *might* be a bit safer than him cycling home alone in
such conditions.
So he set off this morning, duly kitted out with reflectives/fluorescents/lights. No problem. This
afternoon the fog set in, so I made sure all of my lights were in good working order, amassed the
LEDs for self & offspring to wear and I tried something out for the first time (I don't do much
night-time cycling, let alone night-time in the dark cycling). I hunted out one of those
headband-mounted LED torches that I'd purchased aeons ago at Lidl thinking "I'll have a use for that
one day" and today was the day. I affixed the thing to my spare helmet, making sure it was secure by
use of cable ties.
I set off into the gathering gloom. Two "normal" front lights, 1 x flashing front LED, 1 x LED
helmet-mounted headtorch, two seriously bright rear lights and acres of reflectives on self & bike.
The headtorch turned out to be a Seriously Useful Object. I recommend it. Oncoming traffic
noticeably slowed, dipped lights and went past me remarkably slowly with a wide berth. I think there
was a bit of the WTF reaction to the amount & range of lighting & reflectives.
Same on the journey back too. Nathan & his mates had a reaction of "What is *that*?" Followed by
"Kewl!" when they realised what it was and what it was for and how visible it was and had a good
prod & poke of it to check it out.
I was very pleasantly surprised by how bright the headtorch turned out to be - it literally did cast
a beam into the dark & fog so was a useful secondary light source for me, as well as helping me be
highly visible.
Cheers, helen s
--This is an invalid email address to avoid spam-- to get correct one remove dependency on fame &
fortune h*$el*$$e**nd***$o$ts***i*$*$m**m$$o*n**s@$*$a$$o**l.c**$*$om$$