ok.. I went on a little night ride in the woods tonight (aborted due to the heebie jeebies, but that’s another thread)..

When I got back and uploaded the ride to strava I see that I’m awarded a KOM..!

Now this is unusual in the extreme.. not just because I was trundling along peering at shadows and jumping out of my skin at the sound of my own breathing, but mainly because I’m usually found languishing in the bottom third of any results table, so I was disappointed but I wasn’t too surprised to see that I was 1st/1..

So who created the segment..? it certainly wasn’t me.. I wouldn’t even know how to

Strava creates them for you sometimes.

Now tell us about the heebie jeebies!

How do I do a screenshot so that I can treasure the moment..?

PrtScr then paste into something to save it

ta mikewsmith..

ok, so the heebie jeebies then..

Well, I’ve always been a night owl.. night fishing as a kid, wandering miles through the lanes to get home after seeing my buddies, all night parties at remote beauty spots all over the country, wandering about town til dawn every night high on mushrooms and lighter gas, sleeping rough, insomnia.. habitual nocturnal behaviour..
a creature of the night by all accounts.. I can walk the dog all night on the beach in the wee small hours in any weather, and I love riding the local trail centre at night..

But the two adjacent wooded valleys that are perched on the edge of the moor and populated with gnarled little oaks and granite tors.. the same wooded valleys that I ride week in and week out during daylight hours.. they are suddenly full of brooding intent and monsters unseen when darkness falls.. I spend more energy talking myself down and keeping myself calm than I do pedalling, and there’s not a snowballs chance in hell of finding any flow or getting in the zone..

I sacked it off after an hour tonight.. even though I was in possession of the wonderful Lumenator from smudge at MTB batteries, and could turn night to day with the flick of a switch..

I think I’ve become too townyfied, and I guess that perhaps I need to spend time in those woods and own that bogeyman man.. 😕

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnQ-pjQg38U&feature=youtu.be[/video]

Having music on solo night rides will kill off the heebiegeebieitis. Silent solo’s let the mind wander (more so if there’s been talk of big cats in the area)

‘Things that go bump in the night
Should not really give one a fright
It’s the hole in each ear
Which lets in the fear
That, and the absence if light’

Spike Milligan

Ha.. turns out it was just a glitch

It’s still recorded as a KOM in the recent achievements section of my profile, and on the ride details page.. but on the segment page the title has been reawarded to the local strava hero who claimed it in about 1987 in a time less than a tenth of mine..

And I am back to a slightly more believable position of being 3rd/3

I do think night rides on hallucinogenic mushrooms may be the only cure for you.
I got lost in the dark in my local woods last week, started geting a bit freaked out, couldn’t find the trail and it was getting too dense to ride. Then I came across a clump of fly agaric mushrooms and considered eating them. Luckily I thought better of it and found my way out.
But for you, I think you’ve got ‘the fear’ worse than me, I think you need to take the plunge with the mushrooms.

I think it may well have been taking the plunge with a fly agaric bolognese as a youth that gave me a propensity for paranoid delusions in the first place..

An insidious kind of trip.. not a lot to report bar some earthy ideas, until a few days later I noticed a kind of cerebral unease that is still with me 20 years later.. only for the foolhardy or the terminally gnomic is my opinion of Amanita muscaria

Yes they are to be treated with maximum respect, but most find out the ‘hard’ way– after using psilocibyns, some think that fly agaric is a stronger version, as you know, its nothing like….

Having music on solo night rides will kill off the heebiegeebieitis

Whats that rave song about werewolves and silver bullets?

Don’t know the rave one – but get this on yer ipod.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhSc8qVMjKM[/video]

Having music on solo night rides will kill off the heebiegeebieitis.

Yes – but you won’t hear the the Werewolf as it’s crashing through the undergrowth behind you.