So, now that THE DARK has arrived, thoughts of every night-riding Northwest cyclist turn to “seeing and being seen”.

There are a gazillion products out there to light your bike, or light up what you are pointing your bike at. I’ve pretty much got the “pointing-at” part covered with my Niterider HID headlight/flamethrower. “Being seen” is the trick when you are riding the roads at night.

I’ve got the usual blinking red lights in the back, but I like to be seen from the side. I’ve used blinking LED’s on the valve stems of my wheels, and even blinking holiday lights all over the bike. I’m always a sucker for the latest gadget, however, so when I saw these “ground-effects” type lights on bikes, I knew I’d have to have one sooner or later.

The problem is that complete units (marketed to cyclists) can run for as much as $120. I’ve found a few posts on the internet about how to do this yourself, for about $10.

It’s crude, not even close to waterproof, nor is the power supply integrated with my other light (which adds the weight of another battery system). But, man, it was cool riding around Kent and Auburn with this bad-boy lit up last night.

I really need to streamline my accesories, however, because this bike is starting to weigh a ton.

As a post-script, have you noticed that cyclists will buy every kind of light, blinker, and reflective sidewall tire… I even know fellows that have ordered special reflective tape and meticulously applied it to the rims of their wheels in order to increase lateral visibility at night.  These are also the cyclists that, when the buy a new bike, immediately remove the reflectors that were installed on the spokes of those same wheels because they aren’t cool.  I’m tempted to go to my local bike shop, and ask them for every spoke reflector they’ve removed at customer request, and hang them on my bike.

But then my bike would be up to 2 tons.  Nevermind.

I understood immediately that the selection of this more strenuous route was a form of payback. You see, a few days prior I was guilty of inserting a picture of this same fellow into a dancing leprechaun in a Jib-Jab “Sendable” cartoon (and forwarded same dancing leprechaun to most of the free world). I clicked in to my pedals and hoped to get dropped quickly. For the sake of future route selections, I will resist the temptation to post the cartoon here.

Getting dropped in the headwinds of the 8 mile run to hill #1 was not in the cards (in last week’s episode, Russ and I were blown off the back at about mile 4). Nobody let anyone fall too far back, and if someone started to falter a wheel would be offered for the sucking. Consequently, I was soon delivered to the bottom of “Little Italy”, where I gave directions and a regroup point to the speedsters. Much grunting and wheezing later, I too reached the top.

“We’re lost, you lead, Calnan”. I led the group through the next couple of turns, which would drop them down to familiar territory near the bottom of Peasley Canyon for climb #2. I lingered at the last turn so that the trailing rider would not miss it, and the others were soon gone. Down Peasley Way, left and up Peasley Canyon to 321st, and the last regroup was waiting. The faster group was soon gone again, this time for good as they missed our turn at 296th. A nice fellow walking his dog advised me that the other riders had continued straight, but Russ and I elected to make the turn anyway, as the 7% downgrade in the dark sounded more reasonable than the 15% or so that the others were bound to encounter as they made their way down to the bottom of 272nd via 55th Ave.

I survived better than I expected with only one day of recovery, which is a good sign. Also of note, there was still a hint of sunset color in the western sky as we rode the last few miles, shortly after 8 p.m. I’m looking forward to putting the bike headlights away in the next few weeks.

My good friend and riding partner Kevin has promised me 70 or so miles of punishment for this coming Saturday, however, including excerpts of the SOB route. It’s good to have friends that are looking out for me. Maybe.