On night riding

Photo by James Robertson

Dwindling daylight hours in Scotland (no more than ten today) serve as an unwelcome reminder of just how depressing this time of year can be.

If we’re being honest, typical cycling conversations start becoming pretty monotonous right around now. With some of the ones I’ve heard recently, you’d think that adventure by bike was only possible between the months of April and August.

But what if I told you there was an alternative…

Ride. All. Night.

Normal responses to this suggested treatment plan for seasonal depression can include:
• Rolling of the eyes
• Raised brows
• Tutting, hissing or other animal noises

Sure, this sounds like a pretty ridiculous suggestion at first but I honestly think it’s possible for everyone to enjoy an all-nighter at this time of year without a prerequisite diagnosis for masochism.

One of my main motivations for these rides is everything you get to see in the dark. Oxymoron that may be, some of the best views I’ve had have been at night and there are a number of incredible animals that you’re most likely to see after dark.

Then there’s the reality that a great many roads in Scotland are simply too busy with impatient, inconsiderate and often reckless drivers to be enjoyed by bike. At night many of these same roads, at least in the highlands, are empty. The snow road (between Blairgowrie and Grantown via the pass of Glenshee, the Lecht and a smattering of other inclines) is a great example. During the day, it can be a pretty miserable affair but make this journey during the wee hours and it’s truly serene.

Most of all, watching the sunrise will never feel as good as it does after 12hrs+ riding in the dark.

In part, I’m writing this because of how fed up I’ve become reading the growing body of commentary on how dangerous night riding is and how it should be banned from self-supported ultra distance bike racing. Those of you invested in these races may also have noticed this. My take is that anyone I’ve met with this opinion is just scared of the dark and butthurt by the disadvantage they suffer because of their irrational fear.

Perhaps you’re scared of the dark too, what then? I love riding at night and whilst it’s no longer a source of anxiety, it wasn't so long ago that I’m unable to remember a time when it was. My suggestion to you is to get the best set of bike lights you can afford and embrace the spookiness.

Besides, most people aren’t actually afraid the dark, just what might be in the dark and in the Scottish Highlands, that’s not much of anything. It’s most likely that you are the scariest thing in the dark.

To paraphrase long distance cyclist & author, Tom Allen, axe murders don’t go out in the Scottish Highlands at night because, like you, they’re afraid of axe murderers that hang out in the Scottish Highlands at night. Probably.

Armed with your best spooky playlist and some open ear headphones, or a speaker (because riding in the dark with actual earphones would be reckless) some fairly surreal experiences await you.

Riding along the Caledonian canal last year, I had one of these surreal nighttime experiences. My newsfeed at the time was peppered with headlines for articles I never bothered to read about footage the US military had just released of UFOs. On the way, I was riding past drumming Snipe and more than a few screeching Barn Owls - rationally, if you didn’t know what either of these birds were you would assume they were aliens but I knew better.

As I reflected on the fact that I was glad to know that those bird sounds were not aliens, I looked up and saw a long line of what looked like twenty stars all traversing the night sky in formation - rationally, if you didn’t know what you were seeing, you would assume it was aliens and I did not know what I was seeing. I assumed it was aliens.

If earth was being invaded by aliens, there was no phone signal to google it and nobody around to ask - which is just as well, really.

I rationalised that there’s no reality in which aliens would intentionally choose to invade Fort William without first having landed somewhere more populous and that if by some malfortune, they did that they’d probably just pack up and turn around when they saw the town centre. So I kept riding, resigned to the fact that Fort William was probably being invaded by aliens without any way of knowing. Perhaps I should have read those articles about the UFOs.

By the time the sun had risen, I had reached the Drumnadrochit co-op. Despite the alien invasion, life in Drumnadrochit had continued as normal. As I sat outside with my breakfast, I searched google for evidence of last night’s invasion but was only able to find information on Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites - which had an uncanny similarity to what I had seen. Perhaps it was starlink, it’s also entirely possible that starlink doesn’t exist and aliens had invaded Fort William that night. Starlink was just a cover up.

Elon Musk is an alien and we’re all just living a simulated existence, our lives nothing more than an entertainment product for our alien overlords. What then?

I considered that whether Elon Musk or aliens were responsible for what I’d seen, simulation or otherwise, if all was well in Drumnadrochit then I’d just like to ride my bike.

Artist’s depiction

If you’re still not sold, I’ll leave you with two questions:

- If life is just a simulation, do you really want to spend a 100,000 hours (probably) of your simulated life pretending to cycle outside?

- Even if this is real (whatever the fuck that means) is riding laps around a muddy field really the best we can expect from winter cycling outdoors?

Zwifters and cyclocrossers are going to murder me in the comments for this but you can keep your accusations of masochism - you (literally) filthy hypocrites.