It has been a few days, but I wanted to share my halloween commute home as it was memorable.

I got off of work at 9 pm, and despite the weather warnings of 25 mph winds out of the east, I added an extra layer and headed home.

The ride began wonderfully. As I rode through backstreets and neighborhoods the wind swirled fallen leaves through the shadows of my headlamp and the streetlights. Moving silently through the leaves watching the shadows play seemed perfect for the evening. It was an appropriatly spooky night. The best of autumn and halloween.

Then I got onto the flat bits and the wind just beat the hell out me. It was only about a five mile (8k) stretch, but man, oh, man did that wind make me suffer. It was cold, dark, and even when trying to hammer I couldn't go much faster than 14 mph into the wind.

Then, of course, my headlamp went dead. Now usually I have a white blinky light to back up my headlamp, precisely for situations such as this. Unfortunately it had come free of its mounting and gotten crushed by a passing car earlier in the week. (Beware of Trek single white LED flashers, they don't mount securely.) So now I'm in the dark, getting beaten up by the wind on a dark halloween night.

By this time, I'm grateful for the big hill, as it blocks the wind and I'm up and over and blasting down again towards home, a hot bath and a pot of tea.

(It was a miserable ride, but memorable, and I've gotten a new Niterider headlight to replace the old vistalight and a new front flasher too, because redundancy is cool.)

Well, pleasant commutes to all of you

Oso