It is winter up here in the cold north and the general experience at this time each year is the felling of almost sitting inside an freezer with the lid closed. It is chilly and dark everywhere.

It will be at least 3 more months before things starts to get better with warm weather, earlier sunrises, later sunsets with more light. Springtime will be welcomed after a long, dark and cold winter.

During the winter there are not so many tweed events as during the summer. But some snow is no obstacle for a true bicycle rider. There are no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. Tweed are a warm and reliable garment. it is only a matter of getting up on your bicycle, heading out on icy roads, snowy bicycle lanes and trying to keep away from the largest snow banks. Does the winter season mean that all tweed events are set on pause? No, not at all. For example, there is the lovely Helsinki Winter Tweed Run in Finland for example.

If here are no tweed events close to you? Why not join the Portland based Urban Adventure Leagues latest challenge, the Midnite Bicycle League Challenge 2020? I found out about the challenge after following Urban Adventure Leagues blog as well Instagram for a while. A few years agot I was about to join one of his other challenges, the Three speed October challenge. But sadly the three speed bicycle I own does not qualifies for the event. The rules are that the gear must be internal, built in the rear hub. The only three speed gear system I have, is my dangerous and old Versol derailleur system from 1940’s.

But with the Midnite league I can join up and participate with our any worries all bicycles are welcome. I paid the entry fee and received an journal along with a postcard in the mail. In the journal all the rules and specifications for the event were listed, along with some background history of the event. The rules are few and simple:

1, the ride must be at night, between sunset and sunrise
2, the distance ridden must be at least 5 kilometres
3, five rides at five separate occasions with two rides in a week as maximum
4, you got about two months to complete the challenge
5, write a journal for each one of the 5 rides
6, also, include two photos in the journal and return it back for examination

My journal that came in the mail

Living in Sweden during winter months, riding at night (between sunset and sunrise) is no problem at all. After all, the sun sets about 14:30 in the afternoon and rises at 08:00 in the morning during December and January, it is always dark here. That offers plenty of time for riding in the darkness. The 5 kilometres rule is just as simple. A ride into Stockholm city for a hot coco and back makes it at least 8 kilometres.  It was really going to be fun to take part in this challenge.

I had asked myself what bicycle should I use on my rides? By coincidence, I had my latest project the Rex Duplex made in 1943, standing in the basement. Complete with a fully working dynamo, that powered power to the front and rear lights. It also have a working bicycle bell, mudguards and more amazing. A working brake!

If the weather had been about -10 degrees below and the bicycle lanes filled with packed snow, the old 1927 Crescent racer with studded tires, had been fun to use. But as it was, rain and about -1 degrees. Mudguards are rather nice to have to avoid splash-ups and other inconveniences.

The bicycle I used for all rides, Rex Duplex from 1943. Rusty, rugged but reliable

I must admit that I fixed the break earlier on the Rex, because sometimes being able to stop might be nice thing to do. Stop at a red light or avoid crashing into an hedge is a few example why a brake might come in handy. Perhaps I will write a short topic in the future on how I slightly improve the braking ability on worn old Torpedo hubs by a simple and old hack. Advancing from having no breaks at all, to having about 23% better possibillety to be able to slow down and sometimes even stop the bicycle while riding.

The first ride of the challenge was a quick ride just to pick up some food from a take away shop. It was raining and not very nice at all. But still, it was the first ride of the challenge and it was fun to start the GPS tracking on my phone to accurately check distance and route when arriving back home.

The second ride was on 13th of December, Lucia day.
Here in Sweden it is a traditional day where we celebrate the saint Lucia and bringing light into the winter darkness up here in the Nordic countries. The tradition is to drink mulled wine and eat saffron buns and gingerbread cookies. A fellow tweedian asked me if we should take a ride together and have some mulled wine along the ride. I brought my old military mess kit to heat up the wine. He had brought along a bottle of Glühwine, now we were off on a midnight ride. It was cold and some places even a bit icy on the roads, but with hot wine and saffron buns waiting it become a nice ride.

A fellow tweedian joined up for the ride

Heating up some mulled wine on an vintage military issue mess kit in the middle of night

A ride in the middle of night on dark roads

The third ride was made in a hurry.
The first snow of 2020, I had to get out on a ride before the workers came along and removed all the pristine snow. I packed a small picnic and headed out. After 10 minutes in the snow the headlight started to flicker, the snow was firmly packed around the dynamo and caused it to slid. It was only a matter of stopping now and then and remove the snow and the light came on again, for a moment at least.

Picnic in the snow and night

For the fourth ride, the fellow tweedian suggested an ride in to the city.
That was a fun idea, I brought along the military mess kit once again. This time we made pea soup, a classic hot dish when being outside in the winter. We ended up on Riddarholmen with Stockholm city call as a backdrop, firing up the old mess kit while wondering when the police should turn up, questioning us what we were doing there, boiling soup in an old military mess kit in the middle of the night? In the ned the police never turned up.

It was a bit windy at the water front, but the pea soup and a further ride in to the old city made us soon warm again.

An odd place to have an odd picnic, it was nice even when I spilled pea soup on my jacket.
I guess that is a part of the experience of midnight challenges in the winter

On my fifth and final ride I decided to take a slow ride and really enjoy the calm midnight ride.

This time, I packed some sandwiches, hot water to make tea and gingerbread cookies that were leftovers from the Lucia ride. While sitting on the bench and having my picnic, I listened to my “Smoke rings” playlist on Spotify, it is a 31 hour long playlist with European jazz and dance band music from the 1930s and 1940’s. It was peaceful and nice to sit there and listen to music in the middle of night. A good ending to a fun and nice challenge.

At these times with the pandemic going on, a challenge like this is a perfect event that allows everyone to ride on their own, filling out their journals, adding photos and perhaps write one or two posts a blogs or post photos on Instagram. Just like the #solotweedride event, it becomes an interactive, an digital social event it its own way.

I read somewhere that we were about 100 riders around the world that had joined the Midnite Bicycle League Challenge 2020. It is very impressive, riders all over doing tasks in a joined event, while being on their own. The opportunity for international participants to join are amazing. It really becomes an international community where the bicycle is a mutual interest.

Riding in middle of the night creates photo opportunities

My five rides went without any problems. The old Rex turned out to be a really good bicycle, never letting me down even when riding in snow. It was also a good thing, an excuse to get out and having some fresh air in the evenings. In fact I found it so soothing and relaxing that I even took longer rides than needed. Some of the rides without any destination, only out and about on a bicycle, packing a picnic set up and having a quiet rest somewhere.

The week after I completed the challenge and sent my journal to Portland in a letter. The real winter came to Sweden. Heavy snow and really cold nights, with classical postcard views all over. Snow covered trees, icicles all over. Typical. It would have been fun with real winter photos for the challenge. Posing for a photo in snow covered tweed, that would have been a great addition to the journal.

But lastly, if there will be a Midnite Bicycle League Challenge 2021, sign me up. This was really fun, thank you for creating this great event!

Happy tweed!