Ghost Rider

As some of you may recall, I've done a couple of Audaxes on Dartmoor, with weather varying from pretty good to pretty bad.  Earlier this year, despite this learning experience, I found myself entering the Dartmoor Ghost, another of the Dartmoor audax series.  The thing about the Ghost is that it's run overnight, on a summer night, admittedly, but it's still pretty dark for a long time.

Anyway, entry done and accepted, all that was left was to ride it ...

I prepared my bike carefully, as my eyesight isn't what it was, and darkness wasn't going to help.  I chose my old Dawes, which already has 44mm tyres to smooth things out,  and added a bit to the lighting department.  I replaced the B&M bottle dynamo with a SoN hub dynamo and used that to power an Edelux II LED light.  That worked very well.  In addition, I put on two Supernova rechargeable lights, one approved for road use, with a cut-off beam to avoid dazzling traffic, the other being a 'racing' version that just puts out all the light it can.  My plan was to keep the dynamo light and the road light on all the time, and to use the racing light as an extra.  In the event, I had plenty of light and never used the 'racing' light at all.

At the back, I used the B&M tail light already fitted, which gives a broad, steady red light, and added an LED flasher.

All the lights were fine.

The start was at Bovey Tracey, as usual, with slices of pizza to fuel the riders, and about thirty of us set off, in the dark, heading South at first.  Route finding turned out to be surprisingly easy.  I had set my Garmin for 'turn by turn', and it worked perfectly.  About 200m before the turn it would light up, show the turn and go off, then, just at the turn it would illuminate again until you had completed the turn and were on the right road.  It's a well worked out feature.

The route was a good one, taking in the whole of Dartmoor, and riding at night is quite an experience.  On the positive side, there are no cars.  None at all.  There are animals - amongst others I saw a badger, a stoat and, as dawn approached, plenty of rabbits, and heard some things that I've no idea what they were.  On the negative side, the views are very limited, and even with a good light set-up it's hard to pick the smoother parts of the country lanes, so it's a bit of a rough ride, and slower than you would be in day-light.

Controls and catering were good; an all-night garage and cafe just after midnight and a village hall with hot food at about four in the morning, topped off with a fine breakfast at the finish.  No-one goes hungry on the Ghost.

The 'Ghost' theme is that the ride visits a number of reputedly haunted places, but the one to watch out for is the 'Hairy Hands'.  They reach out from behind and steer you off the road - there are a number of well documented instances of this.  Apparently.  Anyway, riding on Brevet No 13, what did I have to worry about?

I did enjoy it, but maybe once is enough, for this type of thing.  Harder than it looks.

Mark