Although I almost never post in these sort of threads, maybe someone will benefit from considering the type of rides I do. This morning was a typical 70 mile ride (we alternate between 40, 70, 90, 120 and 150 mile rides). We woke up at 2:30 AM and hit the road an hour later. In the first 55 miles, five cars had passed us. We did deal with six deer and a skunk, but in an unusual twist there were no foxes or turkeys on the road today. We enjoyed the usual glorious ride that consisted of climbing to the next watershed, rolling twenty miles down a small riverside road, and then climbing back to our home watershed, mostly with pleasant tree farms along the roadside.

With the quality of lights available today, there's no reason to not enjoy the pre-dawn hours for riding. The drunks generally all land by 3:00 AM, leaving the roads free of hazards until the early-riser suburban shoppers fire it up. Sure, it's a bit cooler (I notice some folks complaining about heat above), but there are effective garments available to deal with that. We're fortunate that it rarely gets very cold here (30-35F is considered cold in the winter; typical lows this time of year are in the upper 40s).