Chase The Winter Sun

I have a lamp in my room that simulates the sun. Apparently it shines with 10,000 lux. I don’t know what that means. It certainly is a big round number! Which must be why Lumie (the manufacturer) attached the figure to it’s marketing blah. I know that before I bought the light in early November I was starting to get somewhat desperate for it. I’d heard about light therapy, I know several people with Seasonal Affective Disorder and I knew that I tended to get sad in the winter. Switching it on in my room for the first time was emotional. Like I was a starving plant suddenly watered on the verge of going parched. Since that first time the light it makes has been pleasant to have, but no more than that. Thanks to the Lumie I haven’t gotten so desperate that being bathed in its artificial blue light could be such a relief again. Artificial is the word though, it’s not the real thing.

I have an alarm clock that simulates the sunrise and sunset. I got it earlier this year. I’ve previously fixed my sleeping habits and the sun was already on the way back by the time I made the purchase. However, it certainly works. I am woken up naturally by the light around 5 minutes before the alarm starts, this is easy to recommend. Still, not the real thing. Nothing like feeling the warmth on your skin. I do like to have both lights on sometimes, the sunrise light tempers the harsh blue the SAD light.

I imagine the point has gotten through, I do not thrive in winter. I miss the sun. I’m half sure that maybe I photosynthesise. So the winter turns me into a sad plant. This winter, however, wasn’t nearly as bad as it might have been. Partly because I purchased various lux filled aides and artificial sunrises and partly because I started getting up to see the real thing.

Regents Park is perhaps an unlikely cycling Mecca. It’s flat, the scenery is fab when you can see into the park, but you mostly can’t. The surface is fine for English roads but no more than that and although there isn’t too much traffic there’s still plenty. Nonetheless, it is in the centre of North London, there is less traffic, the road is wide almost everywhere and the glimpses into the park are gorgeous, especially at sunrise. It is a home for urban cyclists we’d be sad to do without. Also, once you build up speed you really can get to rolling. The top laps of the park are 50kmh plus, large groups whip through in chain gangs doing mid 40’s. There is an app that tracks “not how fast but how many” laps you have done, complete with graphs. It can also be a very social way to cycle. Laps are a blast and there’s nothing quite as nice as sunrise laps. Some days in the winter, they truly are a privilege.

As the day shortens to nearly nothing in the winter months, just when you want them least, clouds blanket the sky. The slow to rise and low hanging sun spends 4 months of the year also obscured. Except, occasionally, rarely, when we are lucky. I learnt to watch for them, I had to become a connoisseur of various weather websites and they are so very rare. When they came however they brought, at last the real thing.

Though not at first of course. Not that easy. First force yourself onto your bike in the darkness. It’s 6.15AM or something ridiculous. In the deep winter there is barley a hint of Sun’s rise. Wear your warmest, layer up well, protect your ears, cover your mouth. Hit the park, it’s pitch black in places and lit under old fashioned yellow street lamps in others. The soundtrack is perfect, silence and thin tyres pounding tarmac. It’s the worlds quietest roar, it’s fast people on bikes. Their lights swarm like fireflies as they stream round the lap. Meet whoever your meeting and get going, you can’t wait around while it’s this cold and the changing view awaits. As the sun starts gently to colour the landscape, the lap around the park is slowly coloured in. On crisp winter days they view inside can take the breath away, golden glowing frosty grass with rising mist. The sun is coming, head round past the mosque, round the corner, the sun is round the hedge, THERE IT IS! Low in the sky, hanging over the fastest, widest part of the lap, orange and smaller in the winter. Not quite strong enough to warm the skin, but the sight of it is what you need, warming your soul, the real thing.

Clear winter days are rare and treasured. The secret I’m discovering this Spring are all the other ways to work your legs in the winter. This year, I’ve headed out into the mulch under clouds and sweated through my eyeballs on stationary training bikes. The days are stretching out at last, longer and longer and I’m ready. More ready than I was last year by a longshot. Last year the spring arrived and riding my bike felt light pushing through cobwebs, I had to start small. This year, it’s already time for adventures and time to go further. So, buy a winter bike or a turbo trainer, push through the winter, seize what sun there is to be had and when the warmth returns, the real summer Sun, you’ll be ready to seize it’s welcome.