tarwheel 

Can you believe it? -- Daylight savings time starts again next Sunday (3/9). I'm actually NOT looking forward to it for a change because my morning commute will revert back to darkness again. After months of riding to work in the dark, it finally has brightened up enough so I don't need my light to see in the mornings. On the upside, we'll have an extra hour of daylight in the afternoons.

macteacher

Hold on..don't the clocks move forward? Meaning 6am will really be 7am? Meaning you'll be riding in daylight?

twinquad

OK, suppose that right now it's dark at 6:00 AM. You set your clock forward an hour. Now your clock says 7:00, but it's still dark.

Rob_E

Always confusing until it actually happens. Well, to me anyway, but what I do remember is that last fall I was riding home in the daylight, and then, presto-chango, my 5:30/6M commute required lights. I spend most of my morning commute on the bus, but I'm just happy to be riding home in daylight again, and not worrying about my lights all the time.

In my family we spend the two weeks following giving the time and the "feels like" time. "Well, it's 5:30 by the clock, but it feels like 4:30."

macteacher

7am is not dark...that being said....you are closer to see'ing the sunlight.

tarwheel 

Daylight savings means time "leaps foward" in the spring. So if you normally leave home at 6:30 am, that would be same as leaving at 5:30 am now (in terms of lightness).

gman

Sunrise today in the DC area was 6:37. Thanks to the clock change, the sunrise next Monday will be 7:37 . Sunset will go from 6:03 to 7:03. After the clock change, when I leave the house at 6:00 AM I will face an hour and a half darkness rather than a half hour. The payback is more light on the evening commute when the crazed cagers are really out in force.

donnamb 

Ugh. I can't stand DST. It takes months for my body to get used to it, then it's time to switch back. DST = insomnia time for me.

cyccommute 

Here near the 40th Parallel, the sun will rise at 623 on March 8. It will rise at 723 on March 9, according to the US Naval Observatory. According to Colorado State Law (and probably most other states), you need to have vehicle lights on until sunrise. According to common sense, you should run lights on a bike until sunrise to avoid voiding your third dimension

Additionally, an hour earlier in the morning is an hour colder. I hate daylight saving time in March

DataJunkie

I love it!
I could care less if my morning commute is in darkness the whole year around.
What matters for me is my return commute. Riding early in the morning in light traffic is fine without daylight. Riding home in heavy traffic in the dark annoys me.
Plus, it enables me to have fun after work rides.
No more limiting my fun rides to 20-30 miles. I can ride the occasional 60 mile rides instead.
Then barbeque afterwards!

kokomo61

Now, I'll go from using the front lights in the evening to using the lights in the AM.....although the blinkies stay on year round when I'm riding, no matter what the time.

ItsJustMe

Uh, no. Spring DST = darker at a given time in the morning.

If you go in at 6AM and it's starting to get light now, next week what we now call 5AM will be the new 6AM. Which means it'll be darker when you ride in. Your 6AM leave time after the DST change is what would have been 5AM before setting the clocks ahead.

I'm all for it. I'd rather ride in the dark. Of course, I leave at 5AM so it's going to be dark either way.

It used to bother me, but I intentionally started shifting my wake/sleep pattern around, so now it doesn't really matter to me when I get up or go to sleep, as long as I get the right number of hours. Before I did that, yeah, switching by an hour would bother me.

But if it takes you months to get used to it, it's pretty much a given that you're not getting enough sleep. A recent study showed that most americans don't get enough sleep. That's not a trivial thing either; it's dangerous to not get enough sleep, both in terms of attentiveness while riding/driving and your long-term health, which is badly affected by chronic sleep deprivation.

knucklesandwich

This is how I feel.
I get to work early enough that the traffic isn't that bad, but leaving at night is all the more sketchy in the dark, so I am looking fwd to the return of DST.

rodar y rodar

Six of one, half dozen of the other. Right now I need a light to get to work (in the evening) and ride home in the morning without. After the change, it`ll be the other way around. In a month or so, I won`t need a light at all.

bigbenaugust 

Yay! Spring forward! I am way too excited about the earlier spring time change. I can ride in the daylight both ways , even if I'm stuck at work. I can barbecue or mow the lawn on the weeknights. I can take walks with my wonderful wife after dinner. Yeah, way too excited.

MIKEnDC

It will be a little while yet before there's much change for me. I head for work a little after 5:00 AM and on a normal day I'm on the road home by 3:30 PM or so. I'm much more jazzed about Spring weather.

Intheloonybin

+1

I don't mind the extra hour of sleep in the fall, but I hate the spring change.

I do like that it is spring though- and I actually like winter .

mtnwalker

+1 more for hating DST

I have no problems commuting in the dark. What bothers me is the lack of sleep I'll be getting. My body will say "Hey, its only 9pm" when its actually 10pm. This will translate to me going to bed at midnight and having to still wake up at 5:30 in the morning.

evblazer

I really liked the both way dark commutes I was having.
At least now I'll have dark a little while longer in the AM as the sun was catching up at the end of my commute.
Maybe with the earlier spring ahead I'll avoid the horrible riding off into the sunset I had last year which made it a pretty scary time to ride. Drivers blinded by sun while reading their evening news makes me feel a little less comfy on certain stretches. In the AM I miss most traffic which is good since for the first few days everyone is going to be short on sleep. In the PM I often follow folks who are reading the paper and they never have their window open so I can't ask em for the sports section

caloso

I don't mind. I have the lights and I've spent the whole winter riding to work with them. It's just a few more weeks, and the payoff is a bit more sunlight at the end of the day to play outside with the kids.

thdave

I love it, but I usually don't come into work until 7:45 or 8 am. This will give me more daylight in the evening, which means more time for riding in the daylight and more time to tinker in the garage/driveway on my bike and other things.

cc_rider

Looking forward to it.
If it had started last weekend instead of this next weekend, I'd probably be riding after work today.

tjspiel

Don't like losing an hour of sleep but it's a quick adjustment and I like more after hours sunlight.

HardyWeinberg

I'm always hopeful that DST will somehow help me trick my kids into going to sleep earlier but it never happens.

MrPolak

Insomnia? Melatonin is your friend. ;-)

On the plus side we get an hour extra daylight in the afternoon for that after-work bike ride!