Buggering about in bushes after midnight with a photographer conjures up all sorts of images, but last week it was all about the What Mountain Bike lights test.
As the final phase of months of testing we lug all 22 lights down the woods and try and find just the right mix of curving singletrack and peripheral light displaying shrubbery to satisfy our glass eyed master Russ. Then it's fumbling through blacked out bags, dropping connectors into long grass and generally giving apes a bad name till well after last orders to get all the lights fitted to the bike and tweaked to show off their brightest display. Some bright enough to create firework style oooohs and aaaaahs from me and Chris, some so dark you can barely see them in the shot. Think we'll put them into the commuting only category then.
Life isn't much less daft during daylight right now either. Mainstream manufacturers have either showed us all their new stuff at press camp or are waiting till Eurobike and Interbike to lift the lid. Either way we can't get hold of most of it for testing for months to come.
Nothing else to do but go out and see exactly how many feet the nettles have grown since the last thunderstorm then. Reckon that new cheeky trail up to the pylon will definitely be impassable by now.