Mountain Biking - Riding trails at night.

Hi all,
a co-worker of mine regularly goes on night time rides on the fire-roads and trails around here and I was wondering just how much light people like to have when riding at night? I have a NR Trail Rat that I use when commuting but is a 10w light enough or do people prefer to have a handlebar light and a seperate helmet light?

10 w will work. When I first started riding trails at night, I think my system was only like a 4 w bulb. I don't remember.

With lights, it all depends on your trail conditions and your ability, and the ambient light.

I bought an H.I.D. system and it lights up the ENTIRE area and I can fly down some fast singletrack.

I've also ridden under a full moon and we all turned our lights OFF! Very Cool experience!

Also, if you've only got one light, then a helmet mount is the way to go for off-road. Your light will shine where you're looking not where your bars are turned. If you use a bar mount, your light might be shining off into the woods as you go around a tree and you'll be looking into a black abyss towards the trail.

On-Road, you're not turning and steering around obstacles and you want to be SEEN by vehicles more than being able to SEE.

Thanks for the reply. I'll look in to getting a helmet mount for my light - I don't want to spring for a HID system just yet.

Hi all,
a co-worker of mine regularly goes on night time rides on the fire-roads and trails around here and I was wondering just how much light people like to have when riding at night? I have a NR Trail Rat that I use when commuting but is a 10w light enough or do people prefer to have a handlebar light and a seperate helmet light?

I use both a bar-mounted, and a helmet-mounted light. I did run both halogen, but broke down this year (when the time changed), and bought an HID unit for my bars. Now I run HID on the bars, and halogen on my head. I find that using both a bar-mounted light, and a helmet-mounted light works best for those fast, technical descents. When running only one, my depth perception gets thrown off, and then so do I ... literally!

You'll love riding @ night!

Riding at night can be scary...for me...all the sounds of the forest can be heard so much more clearly.

I use a 60 watt bulb...and mount it on my helmet. It's only a halogen.

I have only done some night riding four times. They have all been under a bright full moon. My club sponsored it this way. Every fullmoon, we all went out. Really great and thrilling. I would have liked to use a bit more light tho... I have a system I made using the 8 ultra bright LED and hook them up to an old set of batteries that I used when I raced RC cars. THey last about 4 hour and charge in 25mins from a sig lighter. Made them as a physics project and they worked amazing.

I just have a NR Evolution for nightriding... its adequate but the beam isn't very white. Its about the minimum I am comfortable with for a trail at night. Riding in a group though (especially since my boss has a NR HID Blowtorch) its just dandy.

I just sprung for a Cygolite Z-force Nimh HID light. I found it @ www.cycletechinc.com and had beyondbikes pricematch it because I wasn't sure how reputable cycletech was. I can't wait to see what kinda light this puppy puts out. :p How's the light on the blowtorch, Seely?

not such thing as too much light

I use bioth helmet and bar mounted lights

I have a NR Trail Rat that I use when commuting but is a 10w light enough or do people prefer to have a handlebar light and a seperate helmet light?

If you're riding atechnical trails then perhaps a helmet light is a choice over a handlebar mount for some folks.

On technical trails, if I were to recopmmend one light, it would be a handlebar mounted light. Helmet lights, when used alone, wash out trail features (rocks, roots, drops). A bar mounted light throws those features into sharp relief due to the shadows that it casts, being much lower.

Ideally you would want both but you can still have plenty of fun riding with just a 10w light, like folks did back in the "early" days of night riding.

And you can see San Rafael when it looks like this:

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=19629&stc=1