I haven’t counted how many racers from the Triangle were in this past weekend’s Burn 24 Hour Challenge mountain bike race at Dark Mountain near Wilkesboro, but I couldn’t walk from our pit to the start/finish without running into someone from hereabouts. These are a few of the stories I picked up along the way.
Category Archives: Night
Give darkness the boot
In our ongoing crusade to keep you active in these dark times (post Daylight Savings, that is) here’s a different approach: Instead of cursing sunset, go to bed with it — so you can get up in time for your 6 a.m. boot camp.
Boot camp. For years, this approach to fitness was exclusive to the military. New recruits went into the service soft and squishy, got spit out six weeks later buff and tough. The idea got co-opted about a decade ago as gyms and private trainers began offering take-no-prisoners classes that gave a taste of the military experience, minus the two-year commitment and haircut. The workouts were popular because they were concentrated (perfect for people with tight schedules), intense (“guaranteed results” actually meant guaranteed results), and varied (each workout was different; you didn’t know what to expect from one day to the next). Over the past five years or so, the concept has been co-opted further, into a more … civil version. Or, as Anne Triebert likes to call it, a Boot Camp for the Rest of Us.
Night moves: A safe walk in a dangerous place
Of all the ways to stay active outdoors during the dark days of winter, you’d think walking might be the simplest and safest. What could be easier than bundling up before dinner and taking a brisk half-hour walk around the neighborhood?
Alas, you live in North Carolina, a number of other activities. According to a recent report by the advocacy group Transportation for America even walking in broad daylight is a risky proposition in the Tarheel state. Riskier still if you happen to live in the Triangle, found by the group’s just-released Dangerous By Design study to be the nation’s sixth most dangerous metropolitan area to walk in. Forty-three pedestrians were killed in the Triangle in 2007 and 2008, earning the region a Pedestrian Danger Index — a calculation of the rate of pedestrian deaths compared to the amount of walking local residents do — of 128.6. (While the Triangle was the sixth worst place to walk in the nation among metro areas with populations of 1 million or more, it was a safer place to walk than six North Carolina cities: Rocky Mountain, Wilmington, Burlington and Greenville all ranked as more dangerous places to walk. Go here for a rundown of North Carolina’s 15 biggest cities.)
That we don’t live in the most pedestrian-friendly area comes as no surprise, especially if you live in a neighborhood built during much of the 20th century. Sidewalks are a rarity in all but the oldest neighborhoods built during that period, forcing pedestrians to walk in traffic. And it’s not simply that the pedestrian was forgotten during this time; In some cases, development was downright hostile toward the non-motorized. Witness the traffic patterns around most schools built from the late 1960s through the 1990s, which appear to have used streets as moats to protect them from hordes of children walking to school. It’s not that kids don’t walk or ride their bikes to school because they’re lazy. It simply isn’t safe.
Thankfully, that’s starting to change. New housing developments — Southern Village and Meadowmont in Chapel Hill, Biltmore Park in Asheville come immediately to mind — have become aggressive about making neighborhoods safe for walking and riding bikes. There’s even some encouraging news in Transportation for America’s Dangerous By Design study: The Triangle may be the sixth most dangerous place to walk, but it ranks 30th — ahead of outdoors-friendly Denver — in per capita spending on sidewalks and such.
But unless you live in a Meadowmont or one of the state’s other emerging pedestrian-friendly developments, you need to take precautions if you want to walk the neighborhood at night. You need to make sure that you’re seen by the vehicles with which you share the road. And you can do so for a minimal investment.
“It’s probably worth it to pay $20 to $30 to be able to [walk] at night,” says Bobby Mack, with The Athletes Foot store in Raleigh’s Cameron Village. In fact, says Mack, you needn’t spend that much.
With that, Mack pulls down a $13.99 Brooks wristband made of 3M reflective material that also includes a series of blinking LED lights. The band can go around either your wrist or ankle, and Mack says it’s especially effective at attracting attention because the swinging motion is more effective at catching the beam of a car’s headlight. Plus, the motion is more suggestive of a living object.
“As soon as the clocks were turned back,” Mack says of the recent switch from Daylight Savings Time, “we started selling out of these.” A cheaper ($10 MSRP), lower tech version is also available. (While The Athlete’s Foot caters to runners, Mack, who is also the assistant cross-country coach at N.C. State, says the store sells most of its reflective gear to walkers.)
Also popular, says Mack, are lightweight reflective vests and hats, both of which can be found for $20 to $30. Mack says some nightwalkers use LED headlamps, which sell for as little as $15.
If you want maximum coverage, Chuck Millsaps a couple doors down at the Great Outdoor Provision Co. recommends the Brooks LSD Lite Jacket. The jacket is about 75 percent reflective neon green and weighs 4.3 ounces. At $95, it’s also a pricier solution.
Once you’re sure you’ll be seen while walking at night, a few tips to further insure you have a safe, healthy workout (with input from the Springfield, Mo., police department):
Night hiking: Beating the Standard Time blues
With the end of Daylight Savings Time on Sunday, GetGoingNC.com is looking at various ways you can keep active during the dark times ahead.
For maybe the fifth time in five minutes Alan stopped to comment on the trail. “This is a great trail,” he commented. And for the fifth time in maybe five minutes I reminded him that we had hiked this same trail maybe a half dozen times. His sense of discovery was justified, though. This was the first time we’d hiked the trail in daylight.
Coping with Standard Time: Mountain biking at night
When I saw that Jeff LeBlanc was leading our ride, I knew that whatever he said was going to happen on the ride would be what would happen. Rare in group riding circles and reassuring, especially since this ride was at night, on mountain bikes, through twisty trail in the forest. While I’d done night rides before, this was a first for my 14-year-old stepson. The fewer surprises the better, and I knew from experience that LeBlanc, a retired Marine remained possessed of Corps discipline.