Recently Scared of Dark Dartmoor

I am a cyclist, or more accurately I commute to work mostly by bike, I never bike for pleasure, although pleasure can be had balanced above a pair of gyrating wheels I am told. Recently the mornings have been very dark and cold and unexpectedly, I have found myself evolving a fear of them...

For those of you have not experienced the long trek into the depths of winter whilst living on Dartmoor, let me explain...its a bit shit

Even on the dry days its wet and this coupled with sub-zero morning temperatures creates a very real and scary hazard...black ice. Last year I was cheerfully navigating my way around a bend when all at once I wasn't. Both my wheels flipped (as if propelled) out from under me and appeared as if by magic between me and the sky, shortly after noticing this phenomenon my shoulder (right...my traditional absorber of pain) braced my body against the road providing a useful fulcrum, around which I was able to bring the rest of my body and bike crashing down into the glassy tarmac with more than 3.7 times the force of gravity ...this sort of event has a haunting quality on a mans cycling I have found..

The other fear I have on these cold and windy mornings, is fuelled less by physical reality and more by probability.

Normally as I cycle to work across the moor, I consider it not at all probable that evil beasts roam the vast wastes of the moor..however, on these lonely morning when the only light is cast by my solitary lamp, the existence of things from the outer reaches of imagination seem to become highly probable..

This is the sort of over evolved thing that waits in the dark

If you have ever cycled, walked, or even driven in complete foggy darkness you will know that you are presented with a misty tunnel of light ahead of you surrounded on all sides by a fearsome inky blackness, now on Dartmoor, living things regularly step out of the dark and into your tunnel, sheep, ponies and cows being the prime culprits. Could there be other things, there in the dark, hungry and lustful, who hate cyclists?

There is the fabled beast of Dartmoor for one thing, a giant cat like creature which tears apart sheep and allows farmers to make unreasonable claims for vast amounts in accordance with the EUs' farcical Common Agricultural Policy......and recently there has been a spate of wild boar sightings, as anyone who knows anything about wild boor will tell you - a fully grown male 'tusker' would make quick work of a hapless cyclist, especially if the attack is a surprise right angle smash charge, bowl over thing...

Recently taken on the moor, a boar? Or (more likely) a mutated simian of some sort, capable of over 60 mph endowed with the preternatural cunning of the occult?

I blame American Werewolf in London for some of these fears and the Brothers Grimm for the rest. Although my rational brain is quite useful in setting me straight and I have so far emerged unscathed.... it can't all be rumour mongering can it?