Dark Skies at Night…

…not exactly a cyclist’s delight – especially when the cyclist in question has a bottle dynamo that has taken a dislike to the damp and cuts out whenever they go through a puddle, only to cut back in again when they hit the next pothole which, when they are running on the standlight only, is fortunately a pretty frequent occurrence. Indeed, on the worst stretches of road, the effect is similar to one of those flashing front lights. I love my dynamo, I really do, and when it works it’s brilliant, but I might want to avoid the dark rides home until I’ve done a little percussive maintenance on it, possibly accompanied by swearing.

And yet, and yet … when there’s no moon and it stops raining and the clouds vanish and you can see the whole sky freckled with stars, it is still a sight for sore eyes and worth almost ending up in the verge because you have been speeding along in the deserted dark looking upwards and into space.

I had a busy day today with a trip to Glasgow and a fantastic lunch and a tour of an actually-might-be-if-not-good-at-least-not-horrible-adjusted-for-this-being-the-UK planned cycle route, all of which I should probably be writing about, and may actually do one of these days. For all that, the highlight was still the ride home under the stars.