It's turned cold here in Minnesota - (low 40s this evening) and the evening light is sparse. So tonight was my first of what I hope will be many night rides. In previous years I have kept riding on the weekends til late in the season or even throughout the winter, but retreated to the gym during the week because I usually can't ride during working hours. But god, I hate the gym. This year I'm going to try to ride at night, when I can.

So this first ride was 18 miles in Afton, out by the Wisconsin border. These are country roads with no streetlights and in some cases, no paint on the road, and I found that my lights are not really good enough for illuminating the road when it's pitch black. Fortunately, it wasn't really truly dark tonight - it went from dusk to nearly dark, but with a little brightness in the western sky. I'll upgrade my lights and keep riding.

I'm not sure if I can do this when the roads turn icy or snowy - I can handle daytime winter rides and I'm fixing to deal with nighttime rides on a dry road, but the combination of dark and snowy/icy may be too much of a challenge.

I greatly enjoyed my ride in the semi-dark.