Taking the Long Cut home

I left work late, around 7.30pm and decided that I wanted to test both my [tag]fitness[/tag] (my back seems greatly improved now) and my new toy – L&M ARC NiMH [tag]HID[/tag] light :) Here are some observations related to my [tag]cycle[/tag] trip home this evening.

• Dublin is windy. [tag]Dublin[/tag], along the coast, in late November, at night, going downhill into a headwind, is very feckin’ windy!
• My Gortex jacket and [tag]Cannondale[/tag] gloves are definitely windproof, thankfully! I think I need to work on my layered system though – football jersey and jacket do not a wicking system make!
• My new [tag]Light and Motion[/tag] ARC HID is so bright it’s unbelievable. I had a guy stop his car, reverse back to me and ask about it. His wife/gf was leaning across him to tell me she thought it was brilliant too. I asked if it was too bright but they said no, just perfect.
• Roadies are good. I stopped along the coast on my way back for 2 mins to take a look at my surroundings (quite often I forget to do this!). When I was stopped I saw a blinkie coming toward me on the cyclepath, so I waved to the light. Turned out to be a roadie out on a training run, in full winter skin tights. He checked if I had any mechanicals, said good luck and continued on his way.

If you’re interested, here’s my route. I turned it from a 4.4km [tag]commute[/tag] to a ~25km trip (+/-5km error – no computer on yet). Red is from work to the top of Howth Head, blue is return home. Update: it’s actually 27.5km according to Gmaps Pedometer – thanks for the link Damien.