For some reason, my bike light batteries don’t seem to last very long – they appear to run out of juice when I’m not looking. One theory is that passersby keep turning them on when I leave the bike outside. What this means is that sometimes I get ready to head home, my bike lights don’t. Light, that is.

And so it was tonight. Which meant that I had to choose between maybe cycling home the usual route without lights, or seeing if the nearby Tescos on the other (slightly longer) route was open for battery-buying.

Turned out Tescos wasn’t open, so I had to go the rest of the way being very carefully, and mostly on the pavements. Luckily the streets are deserted at night – one of the few benefits of working as late as I do…

Strangely enough, I don’t seem to have slowed down as much as I thought – average speed of 5.82 miles per hour… The interesting thing about this route is that there’s a great big hill close to the start, and it’s almost entirely downhill from there. Whereas my usual route is pretty much a constant uphill, with a long uphill stretch at the end.

I think I’m going to start taking my lights and/or batteries out whenever I leave my bike anywhere for any length of time…