Night Riding, cheap lights and selfish grumpyness

I've been night riding for, oh, probably about 8 years now and I love it. Solo and in a group, its great fun. The feeling of being "out there" is much more pronounced when your on a desolate moor in the pitch dark, sometimes it feels like your the only person on the planet.

Over the years we always passed comments about the fair weather bikers... we would be up Rivi in all weathers over the winter months and not see a soul when, suddenly, come the spring all the bikers appear again, much to the amusement of us "badass" bikers.

However, last years crop of ludicrously bright and cheap lights have seen an explosion in people night riding. And being a grumpy twat, I dont like it. We no longer have the quiet desolate moors to ourselves, infact, its like fucking daylight up there with the amount of lights around. Not much I can do about it so suppose I'll just have to get use to sharing my trails.

Tuesday night was something of an exception though. The only other bikers I saw were a group of about 5 descending Coal Pit as I was coming up the mast road.

The night started lovely. Reasonably warm and clear, some good views over Manchester as I climbed up Coal Pit Road. Took the track over to Burnt Edge and the rain started in spots. Climbing the mast road it got progressively worse until at the top, big fat drops were falling on me. Straight down San Marino then. Fuck me it was slippery, nearly binned it on three separate occasions, the rain hitting my glasses didnt help. What was worse though was flatting near the old Quarry. I only had my bar light so trying to change the tube with just that in the rain was pure comedy.

Made it to the road, comprehensively covered in mud and then blatted it home. Pissed wet through, filthy but  fucking loved it!!