bit of a debate here 🙂

given that sunset here is now well after 9 and extending, our club evening ride, which starts before 8 and finished around 10, can now be ridden largely in daylight.

So instead of mounting up bar and lid lights before heading out, it’s easier to pop a single light in the pack and put on in, either bike or head, as it’s getting dark.

there is a 50/50 camp of lid vs. bars – natural wooded mainly, xc stuff.

What does the great stw reckon then – lid or bars ?

…and no answers of both, which is obviously the correct answer for a proper dark ride 🙂

if you are in tight twisty local trails a lid every time. bars dont look around corners.

Van Halen – Member
if you are in tight twisty local trails a lid every time. bars dont look around corners.

+1

Lid every time.

Bar for giving shadows and depth on the trail and showing depressions etc. But only if it’s a proper light with a wide beam. I’d be carrying a maxx-d

If heading onto the roads bar lights are visible in a normal car much better than helmets too. Your head is above roof level in many cars so when you get close (approaching a stationary car from behind) you can become less easy to see.

bars dont look around corners.

Or into and out of rooty bombholes.

If it had to be 1 then definitely on the lid, mainly for the corners!

I do find it flattens out the trail due to the lack of shadows, but it’s still better

Any night riding I do involves a light at some point, once you’re in a wooded area it gets very dark quite a while before sunset. Shame really

I put mine on the bars. Just because that means less weight on my helmet and I can set it up before I set off, so less faff out on the ride. I’ve been doing some general XC bridleway bashing of late though, I reckon if I was doing some tech stuff it’d be on the helmet.

Bars for me. Tree branches drop with warmer weather giving the odd yanky head back lose expensive joystick moment.

loose expensive joystick

But better loose down your back, dangling by the lanyard, than off in the bushes? 😉 🙂

I also enjoy not putting my light on until I really really really have to.

Yup, me too. It’s great pushing the twilight. Until you lose it on the roots under the trees and hit and the barbed wire!

Depends what the last part of your ride is like

Mine is a mince-tastic roll out on some doubletrack and fireroads culminating in a couple of miles of country lane so for me it’s bar mount every time

While we’re all here, is there a decent all-in-one, half the price alternative to an exposure joystick?

No!

Bars, just don’t get on with lid mounted lights

I should add that my normal setup is MaxxD on bars and Joystick on the lid, but when it’s just required for last 40 mins max of a 2.5 hr ride I’d rather not have the full setup with me….

I have a Lezyne Power Drive XL with replaceable battery that was 60 quid that’s good for tarmac, towpath and light trail use. Comes with bar and helmet mounts.

8pm far too late man, get up to Milngavie straight from work, take advantage of the light!

nobeer – that would be ideal, but life gets in the way 🙂

Whangie is on the menu for tonight 🙂

Whangie is on the menu for tonight

Misread this. Thought it said Whanger 😯

Hitting Jumps/drops at night with light on bars = invisible landings. Not good.

If you’ve got both already (didn’t get that 1st time round, I’m badly read) you can try either.

Which do you reckon you’ll settle with? Or do you reckon you’ll just go with both? If you’re taking a bag anyway…

ned – think will take Joystick, largely as it is a lot smaller and lighter in my backpack than a MaxxD !

Depends on your lights I think. Head > bars but if you’ve got a weeny helmet light and a powerful bar light that’s different.

(my answer in that case would still be head, but also, get a better helmet light. In these days of atomic bike lights you can easily have enough light on your head to make the bars basically just for backup and shadow casting.)

The beauty of something like a joystick is that it can go on the bars too

benp1 – Member

The beauty of something like a joystick is that it can go on the bars too

Though the downside is that it’s really pretty bad at it.

turned out we didn’t need lights 🙂

Though the downside is that it’s really pretty bad at it.

New one is much floodier than the old ones though, far less spotty

(I have a Diablo, which would be fine on the bars but I prefer on my lid)

Well, following my comments on this thread, which have followed more guess work on than preferable on tight trails, I’ve got a joystick arriving tomorrow. 😀

I was going to suggest moving north. We managed to get home from the OBI without lights!

^^^^ that sounds lie more fun scotroutes 🙂 powered by beer I guess !