Tag: opening out

#365daysofbiking Approaching equity

March 14th – One of the nice but pointlessly geeky things about riding with a GPS bike computer is the ability to see sunrise and sunset times change every day.

That’s not so great when nights are closing in, but when they’re opening out, it’s lovely to watch; and one of the things that always makes me happy is the spring equinox.

The science of the equinox/equilux is basically beyond me but the equinox is when the length of day is equal to the length of night, and the difference between sunset and sunrise is 12 hours. I always find it intriguing that thins’t smack bang at 6pm and 6pm, which would be neat, but usually around 6:15.

Every year this gets me, and every year I’m as delighted and inspired by it.

Find out more about the science of the equinox here.

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#365daysofbiking Grimness:

November 29th – Although we’re approaching the shortest day – when the advance of night is defeated and light gradually seeps back into my life – this next three weeks are the hardest commutes of the year. 

This evening I noted from the bike computer that sunset is now before 4pm for the first time this winter, and it will creep almost ten minutes earlier as the weeks wear on.

The commutes will be heavy with seasonal traffic, there will be grim weather and the trains when used will be a mess.

It’s the same every year and I hate it.

February 24th – Little firsts are the art of getting through winter. Little, tiny victories that mark the passage from darkness to light, and tonight, on my way home from work, it was my first normal-time commute in something approximating daylight, rather than darkness.

OK, it was wet, windy, murky, verging on the brink daylight, but it was perceptibly not dark. A little victory.

The joy of this almost totally took my mind off what an unutterably foul ride it was…

February 2nd – Not noticing I had the camera on a poor setting, I took several photos today that came out really, really badly. By the time I realised, I was on the way home, and my hands were cold, and I was tired. But Bullings Heath – the area around the Black Cock Pub and bridge, at the north end of Hall Lane, Walsall Wood, looked great in the dusk.

It’s worth pointing out that tonight, it still wasn’t properly dark at gone 5:30. I’ll have me some more of that if I can – but it was a horrid cold evening, the kind that makes your forehead hurt and finds every sensitive part of your teeth.

I wish it would either get really cold and snow, or warm up a bit. This current cold and damp is the worst of both worlds.