GW in “I am better than you but I disguise it as a genuine question” SHOCKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*looks forward to “al have a word with yourself you don’t understand” reply*

Seriously I do look forward to seeing your “meek-and-polite-in-real-life-just-like-the-rest-of-us” real-life persona on an EL ride soon….

500 is fine for me on my lid when Im on my own – but when all your mates have 6 packs and Toros etc you cant see a thing in your shadow – which means you have to let them by – which is just not on

this +1

I ride twisty but not very technical singletrack, and riding into the eclipse caused by one of my mates’ bar mounted lights, which also burns your butt if they are directly behind you, ceased to be acceptable.

So now about 500 on the lid and 1000-2000 on the bars

Does the OP have friends to ride with? If not this may not be an issue 😉

I kind of get GW’s point though.

I used to ride my local trails (easy wooded singletrack and roads / lanes to and from) with a 5W and 10W Vistalite. Sure I couldn’t ride as fast as in the daylight but I enjoyed the different challenge.

With newer brighter lights I can go a bit faster but the fun for me from riding at night is challenge of it. Its meant to be dark after all!

i never use full power. i always use bar mount too 🙂

gw= can deffo ride a bike!

Jedi made a point of telling me during our skills session that GW from the forum is a force to be reckoned with on a bike.

EDIT – speak of the devil!

you just need to know your local trails very very well

I know my local roads very well, there’s less to crash into and I’d still not even contemplate going for a ride without lights (and it’s nowt to do with fear of being run over!).

I do agree that it’s become an ‘arms race’, and everyone used to manage just fine on Vista Lites as above (I know I did), but to say that people don’t need lights at all if you know your trails is just daft IMO. Again, if you can get away with it then your eyesight is obviously superior.

last night is was GT black, other times it’s innerleithen.
Big, fast descents need as much light as you can get, and a lot of that on your head for corners, but in particular filling in the darkness of drops.

Combination of lights last night was ~6500 lumens between 2 of us, that was about enough. Seriously, it’s the first time I haven’t backed off the speed due to lack of light.

Al. your inferioriy issues are not any of my concern. 😉
you’d have found me just as honest and straight to the point if you’d plucked up the courage to speak to me about anything on either ride we’ve done together. We’ve (WM) been out night riding locally Monday and Tues this week and I’m heading out again tonight (as I won’t get a chance to ride anything much over the w/e) to Carberry (prob on my todd as it happens) you’re welcome to join me if you fancy it?

cheers Tony, you still got the 10W bar light rule for your shore?
Ps. I’ve completely forgotten what dates you said you’re up? 😳

~6500 lumens between 2 of us, that was about enough

**** hell! I use 20W + 12W halogens and a 100-lumen (or whatever it is) commuting LED for riding GT, Pentlands etc. Can’t see much, but it’s enough to ride at my normal speed. I once got caught out at Innerleithen when I was out later than expected, and rode down the bottom bit of Make or Break with a Tesco torch ziptied to my helmet. It was great! And before you say it, I’m a shite rider…

So I concur with GW 🙂

yeah, i prefer low light levels for the shore as it casts wierd shadows otherwise.
6th-9th nov i think 🙂

ok , I admit it, 6500 lumens was insane.
Sometimes I like all the light I can get as a daytime replacement ride, othertimes I ride everything I can with no lights.
I think my best night ride last winter was unintentionally coming off Pykestone hill into Peebles in the dark. We got to the top at sundown a bit later than expected and decided not to put lights on.

Seriously, it’s the first time I haven’t backed off the speed due to lack of light.

for me when I first found trailtech HIDs and headmounted one was the first time I really felt I didn’t have to back off riding DH tracks at well known (to me) places like inners etc., IIRC they are around 500lumens (someone clever will no doubt confirm/correct) that must’ve been 10 years back and to this day I’m happy with that output on my head.

I know my local roads very well, there’s less to crash into and I’d still not even contemplate going for a ride without lights (and it’s nowt to do with fear of being run over!).

Funny you use that example, there’s one road climb on my local rural road route I nearly always switch my front light off for, I prob can’t explain exactly why, it just feels much nicer and makes me happy. you can see car headlights for miles so I’ll switch back to low setting if anything’s coming.

but to say that people don’t need lights at all if you know your trails is just daft IMO

don’t believe I suggested whether anyone else should or not. 😕 you do have a rather bad habit of making up stuff I haven’t actually said and then arguing with me about it tho.

6th-9th nov i think

Hmm.. we might need to bring lights. 😆

I’ll no doubt ask you again, my memory for trails is great dates not so much 😳

can see how folk can justify maybe 500-700 lumens on their head but come on?

Who do I have to justify my overuse of lumens to and why?

Ooh….riding lords love-in? 😛

GW I’d hate to think you’d waste your time on my inferiority issues, which are clearly many, unlike yours, which don’t exist.

My point was you could help yourself by re-phrasing your questions. My rates are reasonable.

Anyway why not BATTLE on the IL enduro? I’m racing the climbs only 😛

why don’t I just give you my log-in details? 🙄
I’ll be heading over for 6-6.30ish, if you’re coming please don’t bring a **** cross bike.

❓

I don’t get out as much as I like and have a really bad memory, so riding in the dark is out of the question for me. I’ve just upgraded my Ay-Ups to compete in the lighting wars but if I’m out on my own I’ll probably just use the helmet on its own. Last night at GT I rode with somebody elses helmet mounted light and missed the bar mounted light, that may just have been down to different beam patterns. To answer your question, last night I rode a trail I hadn’t ridden for probably 3 years so I needed all the help I could get, which was probably ‘only’ 800-900 lumens. I’ll make sure I take plenty light to Carberry even if it’s only so you don’t run me over.

I am riding with a 700ish hmebrew light on my head and a 500 ish on the bars.

Just my usual pentlands rides so anything from open moorland to twisty woodland

Bar light is best in rain / fog (less dazzle) helmet light in twisties.

Homebrew lights made for fun hence two. Sometimes I only use teh helmet light but I did find it not enough once at glentress – hard to get depth vision

Elephant, what do you have that’s 5000?! I though 2800 was a lot! Or is that the total output of two or more lights?

What?

Most of the time when I’m night riding, it’s because I want to go for a ride and it’s night, not because I want to go for a night ride. So I have stupendous amounts of light attached to make it less like a night ride. Whereas if I want to go for a night ride I turn the lights down.

I like lumen threads nearly as much as “what tyres for tuesday” threads.

Beam pattern is more important than lumen number I reckon, its all very well having 2000 lumens but if they are pointing 50m down the trail and its dark around your front wheel its only going to be benefiting your stw ego. I have 700 on the bars and a 300 torch on my head and that has been fine for me so far.

GW
you’d have found me just as honest and straight to the point

Indeed. Slightly less “forthright” in real life tho

bigjim – Member

….. if they are pointing 50m down the trail and its dark around your front wheel …..

Errmmmm – I like to see at least 50 m down the trail and rarely look at the ground under my front wheel

IIRC they are around 500lumens (someone clever will no doubt confirm/correct)

yep that’s about right 450-500 lumens

It’s funny when hids first came out people questioned why so much light, but for me they were all about run time. They were an equivalent of 30-40W halogen setup (very common in those days, lumicycle being particularly prominent) but only drew 10W from the battery. Li-ion took batteries the next step over NiMH in terms of capacity to size ratio and combined with hids were a killer package.

I do agree that 500 lumens is enough light for me although I’ve just bought the (claimed) 1000lumen magicshine 🙄 but having said that if it was a choice between a 500 lumen light and a 1000 lumen light at the same price I’d probably go for the 1000 lumen 😳 to be honest I didn’t look for a 500 lumen light at £15 do they exist?

I can’t be arsed to read all that but 500 lumens is fine until you’ve got someone behind you with a 1000 lumen light.

What do you actually ride with more than 500 lumens?

Road.

‘I’m with GW on this one’ shocker. 😆

As per jam bo’s comment above: I suppose in total i have 500 or so lumens between bars and helmet and that seems fine, particularly if 350 of them is from my lovely heavy old-skool (5 years old! the horror!) L&M solo halogen on my helmet, I like the yellowness of it if no one else’s lights are brighter than or interfering with it.

I borrow mrs j’s fancy lights and ride with more than 500l if I am required to enter the ‘arms race’ of people behind me with much brighter lights, only really because you need something to fill your own shadow cast by the latest exposure coke-can-on-bars behind you. (they are almost always Exposure round our way for some reason -is that the same everywhere?) So for me that will be enduro races and the local club night ride because there are usually a dozen or so folk out on that, and sometimes I manage not to end up at the back!

Beaten to it by simondbarnes.

Road riding where the light gets spread over a wide area and the speeds are much higher, I’d quite like to have lots of power thanks.

The trails I ride are littered with obstacles. There’s roots, puddles, old guys on wee bikes with no lights on, jumps, balding homosexuals in streams, mud, trees, wannabe germans hiding in old bunkers, rocks, bears, you name it. Thats why I’ve bought a second magicshite!

How many lumens is the deal extreme, and tesco AA light?

Somewhere between 4 and 8 thousand I think.

absolutely PMSL Mike!!! 😆

Get you 2 Chuckle Brothers!

Errmmmm – I like to see at least 50 m down the trail and rarely look at the ground under my front wheel

That might be why I was much quicker than you on Black Hill last wednesday night 😛

You like to see at least 50m down the trail?? Round our way you can’t see anything like that far down the trail, what with all the corners, undulations, old blokes riding without lights, big floaty heided blokes wearing gardening gloves on day glo lumps of steel and the like. I guess you might want see that far if you are going down exponential hill at warp factor 5 whilst trying to keep your hair out your eyes.

Oh – saucer of cream for bigjim

😆

Hope that hasn’t ruined my chances of getting out for a ride with the WM? I’ll bring home brew 😉

No danger! I’m looking into re stocking my homebrew soon too. Got a 160 pint capacity at the moment but might have the chance to buy another 40 pint barrel soon.