October moon, 6 AM.
Lights required for the commuter bike.
Popeye rode his bike either to or from work all last week. Some days both.
Thursday, he rode to work, rode to the ride after work, rode the ride, hitched a ride, and rode back to work in the morning. All completely in darkness.
Overachiever.
If last night's full moon ride were a hash, he would have done some down-downs for that.
But it wasn't a hash. It was just another awesome night ride.
Under a full moon.
A full moon at apogee. The farthest point from earth this year. Appearing 12% smaller than the "super moon" last March.
Crossing NASA Blvd.
Left to right:
full moon,
reflective 35mph sign,
Semi photographing moon and reflective 35 mph sign.
But don't let the apogee part fool you. It was the brightest moon we've seen in a while. Because finally, it appears to have cleared up and stopped all the incessent raining.
I was sure the woods, especially the airport trails, would be under water. But they were dry, fast, and fantastic. If a bit spidery.
We get hung up a few times, swiping the larger webs out of the way.
Wolf spiders are reported to be able to move 2 feet per second. That must be an average. Semi, our fearless leader, runs into a real track star. When the flash goes off, this one rises twenty feet straight up, almost before we can blink. Leaving behind his five foot web for us to sever out of the way.
He has plenty of relatives on trail. It becomes a stop and go situation, since no one wants to wear a web or take a 2 inch spider for a helmet ride.
Popeye and Semi finally break a couple branches to hold out from the handlebars as frontal defense and the ride pace picks back up.
Of course the regular stuff can hang you up too.
Dirty going through ahead of me.
As soon as I follow, I get strung up by my ponytail.
By the time I get untangled, the guys are waiting by the road.
Nope, not Simon Says.
Holding a hand over the light that blinds.
We won't even need lights. Not for the bikes anyway.
But with a clear sky, and a 5AM wake up for the Tour de KSC on Saturday, there's sure to be one more chance to admire the moon.
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