I just don't recall losing daylight so rapidly in the past......We typically do 40 miles after work on Tuesdays and Thursdays but it's looking like we'll be lucky to even get in 25 miles any more. With season tickets to college football games on weekends and another couple weeks of traveling I'll miss several consecutive weekends of riding as well.

Looks like I'll be going from doing a 900-1000 mile month to facing a month with almost no miles. And it is the best time of the year to ride. (I don't do trainers.........)

I bet it's going to be like starting all over again.

Keep up the great riding reports. I'll be reading with envy.

This time of the year ( around the fall equinox) we lose around 3 minutes of daylight per day! So in just ten days, we lose a half hour. Yes, it sucks!

Blame it on global warming!

REALITY can be a bummer. On the bright side...this to shall pass.

Get some lights and keep riding.

Only 3 minutes and you are whining? Wimp

That's what I do. At least on the commute.

I agree with you about the season ... I do prefer warm summers. But look at the bright side ... ski season is around the corner.

Do you get the full dark treatment or just the awfully short daylight trick?

You go to the football games? Around here, game time is prime riding time. All the drunks are either in the stadium or sitting in front of the TV. I loooooove overtime, especially if it is a rivalry game.

Short daylight. But, it is not as bad as it sounds. At this latitude and climate that is a bit different than what most folks think. Due to planet tilt we get short official daylight but a pretty long twilight. That gives a decent day. Then our snow isn't that sloppy, grimy stuff of America or Southern Canada. It is almost like sugar, dry and reflects light very well through the clean air.(Outside town that is. Fuel oil costs have encouraged the essentially unregulated use of wood in stoves with no or minimal environmental controls. During inversion periods the air can get very toxic and what I call "chewy")

dark...cold...white frozen stuff....happened last year around this time....seems to be a pattern....

As Victor and others have said . . . Get lights! It's not so difficult. Lots of brands of very good bicycle lighting systems are available now. A far cry from the "Wonder" lights of the 70's!

Here is a photo taken with the Pacific Ocean in the background, on one of our evening rides. Lights on the bikes were turned off for the photo. Click to enlarge.

Our evening club rides keep right on going, everyone just has to remember to bring (and keep charged up!) their lights, then no worries. Thanks to a lot of innovation in cycle lighting technology, dark isn't nearly as dark as it used to be!

Rick / OCRR

Exactly. The earth is suffering from heat stroke and is starting to lean over on it's axis a little.

my cats are bummed too. I only let them out in daylight because of the nocturnal predators in our area. lately they haven't been let out for their morning stretch. it's gonna be a few months before they go out on a weekday again.

Our cats go out at night and seem to like the darkness better than light. No serious predators most of the time!

Rick / OCRR

my cats prefer the dark as well, but then they don't come back in. if I time it right I let them out just before sunrise like at dawn and then when it's light out they come in. if I try the reverse at dusk they stay out when it gets dark, sometimes overnite

When I ride with others, I have to keep turning my too-bright-to-draft DiNotte rear lights off when someone is behind me and then turn them back on at the appropriate time. Back when lights were pathetically dim, there was no need to worry about blinding another rider.

You folks who don't put an intelligible location in your info block and then talk about light, dark, short days, etc, really bum me out. It makes a difference whether you live in Point Barrow or Mobile or Cape Town to understand what you are saying. We don't want your effin' street address, but city would be useful.

Seasonal sunlight hasn't changed in millennium. IMO this is the worst time of the year to ride, especially commuting, because of the difference in temperature between the morning and evening. June or July are best.

I don't understand how this is a surprise if you have done this for years If you don't ride in the winter and don't do trainers it will take some time to get in condition next year. Or you can move to even more temperate year round climates Me, I am going to try and do a trainer this winter.

+++ 1,000,000,000

You can enter your location in your profile - then it shows on the avatar area.

And something like "Just behind the rider in front of me" doesn't help much

Are you in the higher elevations of NC, snow, cold? I'm in the Tidewater area of VA and I ride all year long. In fact when schools are in session, I do substitute teaching, I ride at 0430~0500 which obviously is dark. Use lights.

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Here, here.

I have to guess at times what part of the world the poster is talking about.

Look at the upside for a moment - in less than three months the days will be getting longer!

I'm in the Piedmont around Charlotte and have lights. However we don't have any bike lanes and the roads we ride on are pretty narrow. I'd be fine with commuting in the dark but not doing a 40 miler out on rural roads. Since my office is in my house I can commute by walking a few steps from my bedroom to my office.

Cars just would not be expecting folks to be riding around here in the dark and I'd be very concerned about becoming road kill. I too ride year round but for the 60-100 milers, those need to be done on daylight. We do have a decent option of a Commercial Park that has a nice 1.5 mile loop that is lighted and has bike lanes and it gets a lot of use December-February. However it is about a 30 minute drive from my house.

Here is a link to Reese Blvd in Huntersville via Google Maps. If anyone is in the are come on our on a Tuesday or Thursday night and just jump in one of the groups that fits your pace.

https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=ll

Come on Dec 21!

Now you know why bears hibernate!