The season of bad kit choices is upon us

The sun is out, the roads are dry, my back is not covered in a thin stripe of brown mud, and after five months of keeping them out of sight I have just unveiled my bare knees to an unsuspecting public. All this can only mean that after months of darkness and dampness spring is finally springing.

Despite the general sense of excitement that spring brings to ever-optimistic age-groupers like me that this will finally – FINALLY – be the season that I burst onto the world triathlon stage, spring can be a tricky time for triathletes, not least while out cycling, because it’s almost impossible to get your clothing right.

You either go out in full thermal winter gear and end up sweating like a cowboy’s crack within five minutes of setting off, or you boldly set forth with just a gilet and cycle cap as protection against the elements and end up freezing your extremities off all the way around your route (and being triathletes we of course never consider turning back to change kit). 

Even if you do the sensible thing and layer-up, your ride becomes a disrupted test of your bike handling skills as you try to remove various jackets, gilets and gloves and stuff them into pockets that are too small to accommodate them, all without stopping, before deciding that you are now cold and trying to put them all back on again.

It’s also the time of year when we must decide how soon we should start open water swimming. Some people go swimming throughout the winter of course, but let us not speak of these loons.

For the rest of us picking the right moment takes skill – too early and you’ll end up in a state of sweary, teeth-chattering hell as you paddle about gaspingly trying to decide how soon you can get out without looking like a wimp, and too late and you’ll let your rivals claim the cold-water-hardcase bragging rights.

Still despite all this, it’s better to be out in the spring sunshine than the winter wet, although the thing I most enjoy about spring hasn’t, at the time of writing, quite arrived – lighter evenings.

I’m sure more scientifically-minded people than I could write informatively about the positive effects of sunlight and daylight on your mind and body, but my reason for yearning for lighter evenings is more prosaic – I’m pissed off with being dazzled by oncoming lights.

This has obviously been a bugbear for nighttime cyclists since the invention of car headlights, and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve suddenly been confronted by a complete vision whiteout as the car approaching me doesn’t dip their headlights.

It seems to have got a lot worse lately though thanks to new ‘advances’ in car lights which have made them brighter even when dipped, to the extent that I thought it was my eyes that were on their way out until I read an article saying that 85% of drivers say they are being affected by glare from new LED car headlights.

Apart from buying a WW2-era searchlight and mounting it on my handlebars to give them a taste of their own medicine, I’m not sure what the answer is.

I’ve also noticed a growing trend for runners wearing front and rear lights. These obviously bring safety benefits for runners to see and be seen at night, particularly on unlit lanes, but while the old head torches of yore shone down to the ground in front, the new chest-mounted ones seem designed to shine specifically into my face.

Happily in these circumstances a cheery call like “F…..g hell mate!” is enough to get them dipped or covered while I stumble off into the darkness to regain my night vision.

Still, no doubt the light nights will give me something else to grumble about instead, and in the meantime I must now go and decide whether to go running in woolly hat or race cap, gloves or bare hands, shorts or tights, confident in the knowledge that I will make the wrong choice.  

For more of Brunt’s columns, check out his other articles here.