HarborBandS

I am also an early morning rider with the owls and coyotes, and seemingly hundreds and hundreds of rabbits. But then there's also the skunks. I've nearly been sprayed several times now. It seems they don't like a bike charging at them.

DrIsotope

We used to have a huge chicken ranch about a mile away-- and during those years, it was a veritable skunkpocalypse. Dead skunks in every road, skunks got into our crawlspace multiple times (including once having babies,) and every now and again we'd be coming home and have to wait in the car for the surfeit of skunks to dissipate from the front porch.

But then they tore that chicken ranch down, built a Lowe's, and now it's rare to see a skunk a week. What we have now are ground squirrels. Gazillions of them. Still a healthy opossum population as well.

indyfabz

Skunks have horrible eye sight. About 10' is their range of sight. I would bet they are startled when a speeding bike comes close. Not much approach warning when you can only see 10' in front of you.

Phil_gretz

UniChris

That was my strategy last year, I added a bright bar light (I actually have a narrow handlebar) to augment the very bright 18650 flashlight aimed downwards from the my helmet that I keep tightly zoomed to inspect what I'm about to actually ride over.

But I found that all the added light really did was light up the surrounding woods - made me more situationally comfortable but at least with the one I got it was just broad with a small hotspot, so aiming it down was no better for judging the ground than my existing helmet light, and actually a bit distracting, especially when the odd pattern was moved around by the small but inevitable pedal-induced wobble.

I'm open to better lighting for improving the experience in the good parts, and maybe my chances of riding most of the dirt before dawn (though its been a rainy week so it may involve a lot of walking at any hour), but I need to avoid doing the badly paved miles later than twilight, otherwise it would be a repeat of last year where I ended up walking a total of several miles in uncertain stretches - I'd prefer to keep the walking to just skirting the actual mud puddles and a pair of very steep hills.

The overall route is just short enough that I need to add in ten extra miles. Traditionally I've done that by doubling back on the first five good miles between the dirt and the bad paving first thing in the morning, which has the nice feeling of pre-loading the ride such that I've done almost 60 miles by the time I turn around. But an alternate idea is to just ride the route straight through in the morning, hope that gives me time to return through the bad paving before it's too dark, and then do the traditional repeat in the dark, if I still feel up to it. Part of the reason I didn't originally do that was that it's a less "committed" plan with more likelihood of wimping out at 90 miles. And while conditions are fairly good those five miles feel more isolated - the one time I did it really late was a very spooky feeling, though I had much smaller lights and less experience back then (though on the flip side, that was an era when I was doing a lot more intentional late evening riding on the greenway, something I've done essentially none of this year)

BoBodyJones

Good for you! The more biking the better, and it's really safe as there are not a lot of cars at night/ early morning.

UniChris

Allegedly better light on order, but low expectation of real improvement.

Currently thinking I'll try to start at the near end just before 5am, build in the assumption that I'll be walking most of the mud, and save the repeat of good miles for the evening end with the hope of getting through the challenging section while there's still some light in the sky. If I take my june progress log and subtract an hour to account for the postponement of the repeat from morning to evening, that gives me a strict guide for a what I need to accomplish, or else abandon the ride and take a train back from the far end.

Lots of rain today, have to do my usual trick of checking people's Strava times on the mud patch tomorrow and Friday; if ya'll on two wheels are in the single digit miles per hour, I know it's going to be bad.

And still haven't ruled out hopping the 2am train to the 3:40 allnighter start either. Starting and finishing the near end does have the advantage of a more familiar placement of key climbs and challenges in the day, and a number of abort possibilities in the last 25 miles.

On the flip side, it offers give-up temptations in the last 25 miles...

CliffordK

Be aware of direction of travel during sunup and sundown. If you are blinded, the cars behind you will also be blinded.

3:00 is early. I've done it a few times, but I often have troubles keeping the speed up in the dark in the wee hours of the morning (or late at night at the end of an epic ride).

Exercise can knock me out, so if I wanted to get to sleep early, perhaps a good ride just before bed.

UniChris

A good point to keep in mind especially when doing something reversed from the direction timing that is familiar. In this case though, the route was chosen because apart from a few miles in the middle it is all rail trail. Doing it in the familiar direction there is a spot where it breaks into the open when cresting over a hill where I've sometimes needed to hold a hand up to block the sun for a couple of minutes, if that were a road (or even a busier path) you'd be exactly right.

If I started in the 4 am range any progress at all would be fine, the real goal would just be to fill the time from the latest train towards a goal of starting serious riding around 5 or so. There's a big hill near that end that's steep enough that I have to ascend in two foot gear, so if I could get there and up it in the dark that would help a lot - would be a nice change from dealing with it in peak afternoon sun!

I know exactly what you mean in the super late range however. Last summer, once it got to be truly night I decided that the only goal was survival so it was very slow until I reached the good miles right before the exit. Started into those with cautious pacing after a brief rest as they're an extended shallow climb, but knowing the end was there just kept getting faster and faster. Almost didn't want to stop when I saw the exit.

Interesting thought, my post ride process tends to be slow but might try the idea before a more moderate ride sometime.

That said something really short might be simpler - did two bike path miles with my nephew the evening before my last century and given that it was limited to a few minutes before supper and little kid bedtime didn't bother with special shorts or anything. Ideally I'd have been adapting bedtime right after supper schedule to, and not puttering around preparing stuff.

The way the overnight train idea would point to trying to take a "nap" right after work is giving me some interesting thoughts for a conventional early start, ie instead of trying to sleep from 10 pm - 3 am I might just try to do 7 pm until whenever I wake up, in the hope that a naturally ending "nap" is more refreshing than hours of rolling around contemplating the ride and trying to avoid peeking at my phone. Ideally I'd manage to do no gear puttering in the evening, only tonight or before work in the morning, except that won't work as my new light is only arriving tomorrow and needs some combination of testing and charging (I'd be bringing my headlamp and existing bar light also - no intention of relying on something untried).

Or I could just procrastinate; Sunday's weather now looks as suitable as Saturday's... but that kind of thinking is how my first ever century got ridden on a Monday ;-)

dmanthree

Starting early is good so long as you're well lit front and rear. What I don't like is riding through rush hour. Traffic will pick up, so be aware. Other than that, have at it! It's not crazy at all.

jadocs

Wait....your doing 16hrs on a unicycle???

livedarklions

Chris,

Just out of curiosity because I don't know anyone who does this, but do you do any riding on a bicycle? How does it compare? My impression is that the unicycle is more of a walking motion than a riding one, and that you're using a lot more upper-body muscle. I ride my bike 200 miles pretty much every nn-rainy weekend in the summer, but I don't know if I'd have the endurance for 100 miles on one of those things. Also, what's the steepest hill you can ride up with a uni?

And if you start at 2 a.m., maybe you could beat this:

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com...-on-a-unicycle

UniChris

Not in ages, there was a long gap between that and when I got a unicycle. I may get a bike at some point for the possibility of more social rides, but I kind of worry it means I might never do a "serious" ride on the unicycle again.

Actually in normal cases there really isn't any upper body usage at all. With both hands on the little handle bar it's not even all that possible, and even without I'd sit there very relaxed - any extra effort is unproductive. In a tricky spot through I might have my right hand free for balance, for example will often ride down a hill left hand on the brake lever and right free for counterbalance. Something like dealing with a bump or trying to do a few standing revs to get out of the saddle for tens of seconds would be a different story.

I think it's actually a lot like riding an upright bike in a low gear with short cranks would be - you'd spin like mad and wonder why you weren't going very fast.

Conversely I sort of wonder what I could do on a bike. And if there's be any adjustment to spinning cranks longer than 125mm. I'm sure there would be positional fatigue in an all day ride, especially if it were of a road vs. hybrid cruiser type variety.

But I'm only used to putting out very low power levels for such long periods of time, since going at a speed that seems safe on the flat really doesn't take much effort. If I were going substantially faster, things like increased drag would mean I probably couldn't sustain it anywhere near as long. So while I'm sure I could go further in the same amount of time, it might not even be 50% further. But I probably could do the same ride in a lot less time.

On the unicycle, I'm safety, saddle, and daylight limited such that it's not even that much exercise but more just the fatigue of cumulative stress. On a bike I'd probably be at first familiarity limited and then power-over-time limited.

With 125mm cranks and the 36 inch wheel that can be an issue, I'll get up some things that have your less athletic folks (especially on those something heavy like a citibike) walking. Something like the big hill in central park which NYCC thinks is 4.4% is notable but not that physically challenging if well paced, but I've always had to walk the hill in Carmel Hamlet that gets into the 7% range. Moderate climbs are where I get to pass bikes ;-) - though I try to avoid doing so near the top as anyone with a freewheel would then quickly overtake.

Guys who do off road tend to have 24-29" wheels and 150, 165 or 175mm cranks, so you're more in the leverage range of a bike hill gear, though it takes a lot of skill to be able to stay balanced while applying as much and moving slowly. There's a guy out in CA who does some of the infamous climbing events comparing well with bikes even going straight up where a lot weave.

UniChris

It would be good if I actually spent 12 hours on it; but yes, elapsed time would be around 16, probably a little more as it won't all be daylight.

Increasing the percentage of riding time is a goal, and something I've been tracking by extracting all the pauses from gpx data, but progress has been slow.

Without the ability to stand out of the saddle and coast dismounting for a couple of minutes every few miles feels necessary. It's possible to do a brief break while standing for a few revolutions but that only works so far - my longest segment without dismounting was about 35-40 minutes and I really paid for that, I try to do less than half as much without a brief break.

The bigger win would probably be reducing time spent doing things like going into stores to buy water, or last month in very hot weather hiding in the shade from the sun and trying to eat something.

UniChris

Well, that sort of worked and sort of didn't, but the only loss was opportunity.

Absolutely perfect weekend for riding - clear and cooler. Decided to to stick with the usual routing riding from the near end to far and back, but but start 40 minutes earlier and save the repeated section until evening so that I could get over the bumpy parts before dark, and possibly quit without the repeat if it looked unreasonable. Unfortunately got to bed late Friday and although I attempted to get organized for an early night Saturday, I wasn't in bed until 11pm. And even then never really managed to sleep.

Gave up at 2:20 am and headed to the subway for a 3:56 am train that ended up replaced by a slightly later local.

Started riding at 4:50 am, in the still solid dark, with both usual headlamp and once I got beyond streetlights a new bar light, that is less bright than my old one but a little more uniform without the distracting hot spot.

Unfortunately on the dirt section ran full speed into soft ground and went flying. Fortunately landed in mud that was nicely soft and not wet so only got dirty, but then walked the next mile. Even at walking speed and with both lights I basically could not tell the difference between firm ground and mud, except by the feel of it under my feet. But the walk only took twenty minutes, so reached the start of the paving ahead of plan.

Lack of sleep made focusing on the bumpy trail sections really challenging, but I woke up a bit as the sun came up and was staying about 15-20 minutes ahead of planning. Was actually somewhat cold from evaporating sweat especially after I'd stop. And it was fun to hit many spots well earlier than I ever have before, as all of my past early starts were front loaded with 10 mile repeat.

Ultimately though, as the morning wore on I decided that it I should not try to do a round trip, and so took a train home from the far end. First cause was lack of sleep - there were too many near losses of balance on bad sections of trail on the way up, and didn't want to repeat that late in the afternoon when also physically tired. Next, a key mile of trail was closed for repaving - at 7am diverting to a road was fine (was not passed by a single car in the whole mile), but was less excited about doing that in the evening or going around the fence (I could see the new section looked beautiful). A few hours in I pulled out a small hand lotion tube that had been refilled with chamois cream and discovered it actually contained a mix of soapy water and dissolved cream, as I'd started cleaning it out but not finished the process and refilling it. Was able to identify a bike shop on the route that would be open by the time I got there, but wasn't real enthusiastic on either buying overpriced packets or packing out a full 16 oz tube.

Reached the end of the trail at 12:30, went into town, got a pizza roll and on the train, got home before three and woke up from a five hour nap at about the most optimistic time I could have finished the round trip.

Overall I think I learned several things

- Starting before dawn is workable and not uncomfortable, and riding decent trail with lights works fine

- But getting real sleep beforehand is key. And at least in the preceding days, I was behind even before that night

- No light I've yet found makes the mud patch rideable in the pitch dark. But it only takes 20 minutes to walk - and this was probably my last adventure there, as this Wednesday they start paving it after years of debate

- Although the sections they did first seemed to get little more than half hearted driveway repair, more recent parts of the trail repaving project have made huge improvements in some historically troublesome spots. If they finish it all this winter, and when the mud patch finally gets paved, it's going to be a much simpler ride - there will still be a section in from the near end outside of the range of that project which I want to do only in daylight, but I think I can plan rides to accomplish that.

- Although I didn't accomplish my goal I'm happy I went out and did a decent ride rather than sit around home another weekend

gios

Tried a pre-sunrise (4:30 am) ride this morning and it worked out fine. Nice temps: 77.0F / 25.0C. Was hitting some bumps I usually spot during the day but other than that - a great ride. No headlight, just the white front and red rear blinkers. I was going to wait and order a NiteRider Lumina 900, but now I'm thinking maybe I don't need it. Traffic was like The Omega Man.

Drew Eckhardt 

It's a fine idea. I spent 22 hours on my last 200 mile ride including the two highest paved peaks in the area.

Milton Keynes

My usual morning rides are right after I get up at 5 AM, and I know full well what you're talking about. Coyotes, owls, racoons, and skunks are my usual companions at that hour, with an occasional car or truck.