The Dartmoor Ghost Ride - My Next Micro Adventure

The Dartmoor Ghost Audax Link to Audax UK

145km cycling event starting from Bovey Tracey, Devon. Controls at Whiddon Down and Yelverton, plus 3 information controls.

Under the ethereal light of the full'ish moon, experience the wonder of the open Dartmoor roads, & visit numerous 'haunted' locations on your way. 

This has the makings of a fairly significant 'upping the ante' for me with much more climbing and a distance of 147km that's 50% further than my standard 'long ride' plus it's at night.

AAA 2.25 'grimpeur' (hill climbing) event

Although there is a lot more climbing than my previous rides the gradients don't seem to be a bad as some hills I've done recently. A lot will depend on the weather. I quite like riding at night. The ride is very close to a full moon so if cloud cover permits it won't be that dark. Watching the dawn has a unique quality but cloud cover can spoil that. 

Cycling means you're travelling very 'close' to the weather; what direction is the wind, how strong is it, what are the clouds doing, is it hot or cold maybe I need another layer? 

So far I have been very lucky and really I've had no rain to speak of except once on a Brompton ride from High Wycombe to Tower Bridge where I mis-read the rain. I thought it was going to be a 'localised minor shower' so I didn't put on any rain gear when really the rain had set in for the day.

Cycling and Audax in particular has a 'smiling at adversity' culture.

This distance and profile seem to indicate that I could be in the saddle for 10 hours. That's quite a long time. I'm planning to gradually get up to 12-14hrs by the end of the year.