Originally Posted by
cyccommute
It wasn't 14 hours in the dark but 14 hours total. Lack of planning and a wrong turn...5 miles one way on a 30 mile ride...made for a very long day.
Still...ouch.
Originally Posted by
cyccommute
A dynamo wouldn't have helped much since this was a full off-road single track mountain bike ride. That's why we have all these battery lights out there. Mountain bike riders don't really find generators to be of much use for night rides.
In the last few years I've seen more interesting dynamo mountain bike specific lighting mentioned:
Edelux vs. The World- Mtbr.com
Exposure Revo Mk1 Dynamo Front Light review | road.cc"This compact dynamo powered light offers an 800 lumen output with the burntime only limited by rider endurance. If you keep pedalling the light keeps shining bright.With Stand Light Technology, when you stop riding the light dims slightly but remains lit for 10 minutes. It ensures you will still be seen when stopped at junctions. It bounces straight back to full output after a couple of peddle revolutions. There is up to an hour of light produced after this to help with all post ride activities.
I don't have any personal experience with it though. On the one hand it's not as many lumens as my Seca 1400, and even there I could use a few more. On the other hand, I used to mountain bike with a 200 lumen lamp. And as we discussed earlier, if you're in the middle of the woods with no external light you actually need less light to see with.
Just an fyi that they do make mountain-bike focussed dynamo lights, whether it's "worth it" is as usual debatable.
Originally Posted by
cyccommute
The ride was also about 10 years ago so generators weren't all that good back then.
Lol, yeah, they were terrible then.
Originally Posted by
cyccommute
We did, fortunately, have a squeezy key chain light but after 10 or 15 minutes your hand starts to cramp. I carry a key chain flashlight now...and plan better
:-) May or may not relate to your situation, but I've learned from experience - when on group ride (the kind where people you don't know show up), never ever assume that someone else you're following actually knows where they are going. There's this weird dynamic where following someone makes them more confident in taking bad turns...lol, seriously, I learned this again. And again. And again...
Originally Posted by
cyccommute
squidrow is the perfect example of the "casual user". He didn't do a 40 mile ride at night but he did a 40 mile ride that ended after dark. It's his first 40 mile ride...those were the days
...so I'd assume that he's pretty new to the sport. I would assume that he's not a utility rider nor a bicycle commuter so he doesn't have a need for a light on a regular basis. Dropping $400 on a light system of any kind probably wouldn't make a lot of sense for his needs. Dropping $20 on a battery powered light that has a good output so that he can get his feet wet. I'd suggest that for any one new to night riding, however. If you like the experience, then by all means explore options further down the road but I'd still suggest going cheap to begin with...especially given how good the performance of the "cheap" Cree type lights (aka Magicshine clones) is.
My dad rode with a neighbor for 6 miles. The neighbor was exhausted at the end of the ride. My dad was like "we just got warmed up". I mean 6 miles. 40 miles being new to the sport...
I can't even ride 40 miles without being tired, and I've been riding all summer (most rides more like 15-20 miles though, it's not 30 miles to work).
My approach like I said is to point out the good and the bad under the assumption that the OP is a better judge of what they will need for lighting than I would be, or you would be. It's good to point out cheaper alternatives, but there's a lot of different possible situations for the OP that you're guessing at. For example, OP could have been riding every day when they come home from work all summer. If so, it's not like rain where it won't be raining tomorrow, the OP will continue to deal with the dark more and more as they keep riding. I figure the OP knows better than you or I do. And like I said, mentioning future alternatives means they've heard about them if they get one thing now but later the other makes more sense.