Third Thursday of riding with a mate of mine – 28km last week, 24km last night – had a major puncture which took time to sort so went a shorter route.

All around the Poldice/Bissoe area with superb singletrack, very technical climbs, swooping wooded descents and everything in between. The loan light (until my ordered one arrives) really does help – a Luminous 601 kicking out some serious light – almost 2000 lumens I believe?

The first year I’ve had a really decent light (previously a Hope 1 – good but not enough for fast singletrack) and loving the empty trails then the obligatory beer afterwards!

My mate is a very good rider – as fast if not faster uphill, completely leaves me for dust downhill. He recently won an MTB event and rides a lot more than me! But regardless of that, it’s a blast!

AWESOME

When it comes to riding, my mate is far more AWESOME.

night riding at this time of year is definitely a cool way to get into the winter spirit 🙂 it gives me a sense of joy and things to come and slowly gets you into those dark wintry nights without feeling a bit depressed that summers gone….i love dry cris cool dark night rides, only thing thats beats them for me is completely dry dusty singletrack 🙂

Me too, been out twice this week, think I’m looking forward to next Tuesday night more then Sunday afternoon

Agree with Didzy2009. At the moment, its now dark on a ride, but the wet weather hasn’t really set in yet (not round my way), so the night rides are cool and dry.
😀

SurfMat

The really great thing is that there are two ways that you’re riding is going to massively improve.

The first is simply riding with someone faster thanyourself; this will cause you to seriously up your game especially downhill as sub consciously you’re going to want to limit the gap he puts on you. Plus, you can sort of trick yourself into thinking, ‘well if he can do it so can I!’

The second is riding at night seriously improves your bike handling skills because it teaches you to be more sensitive to what the bike is doing underneath you. With only about 80% of the information you’d usually get, you have to compensate with ‘the force’! Feel for how much grip you have, how balanced the bike is, where you need to put your weight to compensate etc.

Plus you ride steeper/bigger stuff just because you don’t see it in time to chicken out!

Yep, up here already a few weeks of it being pretty dark by 2000hrs.

Growing group of us are venturing out, so guidance around lighting options are going down well. DX are getting a few orders for MCE & P7 torches at the mo.

I’m currently (no pun…) running an old Trout quad on the bars and my Ay-Ups on the helmet.

Running the Trout quad v Magicshine on the bars – the quad just snatches it. However when my mate sticks on my MCE torch it is certainly brighter than the Ay-Ups. But….I also have the dinky 3hr Ay-Up battery pack with switch mounted to my helmet so swings and roundabouts.

The surprise package is my mates Lumi halogen which Trout converted using 20m triple Cree, etc last year. It’s got great output, is simple and although using the most basic driver, does not actually suffer from heat – my mate does switch it off if not moving for any length of time.

The 7-Up will be unleashed on Saturday night where we’re going a bit further afield and where it is a bit more technical. I’ll make sure to ride at the back 😉

Surf – how did your comparison Luminous v Trout work out? Did I miss it?

GeeTee – Your second point isn’t really relevant as I’d imagine using 2000 lumen lights feels more like a floodlit ride than night riding.

geetee – very true. Definitely quicker last night than previous nights even with lots of mud around. He is very rapid though. Luckily I am a much quicker runner to make up (partially!) for it a tiny bit.

Agree on the steeper stuff – hard to tell what gradients are sometimes so you just go for it – in my case usually accompanied by a loud “weeeeeeee” noise 😉

Benz – it ended up slightly tucked away in the “Car vs Bike Lights” thread here:
Car vs bike light

In the end I went for the 601 – waiting for the battery to be sent to Luminous then it’s all go. Was fun testing both! He’s lent me the test light until I get my own model – gone for the 2010 version in black – gets three modes instead of two and also gone for the “double life” 5.2mAh battery as I used up the 2.8mAh one a bit quickly (although the test battery is pretty old and so probably not retaining charge as well).

a Luminous 601 kicking out some serious light – almost 2000 lumens I believe?

Surely that’s just cheating 😉 You may as well be riding during the day!

(An [alleged] 900 lumen bar-mounted flood with a 200 lumen spot for me).

Going out again tonight 😀

We regularly get +15 on our night ride groups on the North Downs and often less on Sunday mornings. Very popular round here.

I love night riding feeling like I’m getting away from the south east rat race.

Two 1150 Lumicycles for me (bar and headlight) which is I think as much as you could ever need. Except for the SIDSYM driver who almost drove into me head-on on the quiet road up to our meet up. I mean what do you have do for someone to see you. ……and calm……