Ron's Jottings: Riding in the Dark by Ron Trill

Keep cycling and little adventures happen. Not often, perhaps, but enough so that looking back, the years seem to be well strewn with them. Especially remembered are those which happen after dark. Riding with a good light and little traffic on county lanes used to be pleasant, especially as road surfaces seemed to be more reliable than those of today. But things could go wrong.

There was an occasion just after the first Christmas during the Second World War, when I lived in Ringwood and worked in Lyndhurst, and I cycled to and from. It was dark when I set out for home and there had been about an inch or so of snow during the day. There was hardly any traffic on the A35 and the road was clear, but as soon as I turned off, on the Forest road to Burley, I had to contend with rutted and frozen snow. I walked the hill from the A35.

At the top of the hill, on the road hemmed in by forestry inclosures, not a sound could I hear, except the wind breathing quietly through the trees. And it was very dark. No light without my dynamo. I mounted to descend the short but steep drop but reckoned without the icy road. Instead of sitting on the saddle I was sitting on the road, and sliding down the hill, coming to a stop when the gradient eased. In the pitch dark, one question troubled me: "How could I climb back up that very slippery slope in search of one bike?" I need not have worried. As I put my hand out to help myself up, it fell firmly on the saddle. The bike had slid down with me.

Fortunately from that point on, the road was not so slippery, and with care, I made it home without further adventure.

Just after the war, what was then the D.A.'s Southampton section were having a New Year's Eve supper at Everton, a couple of miles or so west of Lymington. On the night it was raining hard and blowing a gale, but having booked I thought I had better go. The gale was blowing from the south-west so I peddled hard into it, through Crow and its little stream which flows by the roadside, Bransgore and New Milton. As the road swung to the east, so the wind was more to the side and eventually it became a tail wind. The reverse would happen on the way home and it would be a struggle as far as New Milton.

All that I can remember about the party was the arrival of the Southampton section, wet and windblown, but cheerful. I left as soon as possible after midnight with two others from Bournemouth. We parted company just after New Milton and I was left having a gentle ride home, with the wind at my back, when I hit the flood at Crow. The little roadside stream had overflowed.

Immediately my dynamo stopped working. Too much water on the tyre for it to get a grip. So there I was, at one o'clock in the morning in several inches of water, in complete darkness, on my left a stream which must have been four or five feet deep and a well filled ditch on my right. Perhaps not the best of starts to the New Year! For some reason I looked upwards, and could just make out the top of the hedge on my right, so I used this to steer by. Pedalling very slowly and ready to put a foot down if I found myself swerving either way, this was not so difficult as it sounds and all was well.

Just two memories from long ago. Now that I no longer ride at night such memories are precious.

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