[Closed] Tell me about... first night-riding experiences

Keep at it and you'll realise some of the best 'days' are actually the nights.

I think my first night ride was is 2000 with a 10W smart light set in Epping Forest. Its was like nothing I'd ever done before. These days, I barely differentiate night and day riding.

My first night ride was in 1994 with a 2.5W (yes, 2point5, not 25 😉 ) commuting light. A couple of the other guys had lights with crazy power and names - Like the BLT 'Retina Ripper' which had a crazy 6W of power!

I was also new to the area so didn't know that the trail suddenly turned left and ended up riding straight through trees at 30mph 😯

Night riding's great though - I just don't get people who don't ride through winter (or even Summer nights)

Its addictive, isn't it?

My first night ride was with Cheapo smart lights. I worked out that at £40. They have probably delivered the greatest smiles-per-pound ratio of any purchase I have ever made in my entire life. I got hooked straight away though

Now its coming up to the time of year when I ride more at night than in daylight. And thats just fine by me. I love it!!!!!

I find I'll happily go hooning down stuff at night that I'd think twice about in daylight. How does that work then?

once you start it's hard to stop, even waiting in summer for the sun to go down so you can use lights and it's cooler*

*ok, so these conditions may only happen once every 20 years but you get the gist

Wait until those nasty creatures come out and get you.........foxes that look like lions and don't get me talking about badgers !

did my first solo night ride for ages last night. really enjoyed it shame the new hope pro2 rear hub interupted my singlespeed silence , i had to just keep spinning 😉 great fun and amazing the amount of eyes that light up in the woods isnt it lol

The animals making noises instantly become werewolves and anything that flies is almost certainly a vampire. 😀

Weirdest thing to begin with was only being able to see in front of me.

riding lights* are ace! - even the expensive ones are a bargain.

(*as distinct from 'please don't run me over' lights)

i love getting spooked on a solo night-ride. and yes, it's the badgers that will get you.

I rode over a badger on a night ride! Big bugger just shuffled off as if nothing had happened (according to the guy riding behind me)

My first night rides were with cat eye lights with ginormous batteries that weighed half a ton , fitted in your bottle holder , and ran out after about an hour and a half , went yellow all of a sudden , then let you down at a critical momment.I find the weirdest thing is all shadows are huge so a tiny drop looks massive till you get used to it .gets proper weird in fog if someone is behind you with a good light and your shadow gets projected on to the fog.

that's why i like a 100 lumen head-torch; you still get the shadows from your bar-mounted 'big light' so you can see the terrain* - and a 100 lumen head torch is enough to pick out a few details in the shadows, and fill in the gaps when you go round corners.

(*my vision isn't great in the dark, i tried using a bright head-torch and everything looked flat - because i couldn't see any shadows)

Mine ended up with me in hospital with a fractured humerus, 12 weeks off work, 2 operations and 2 yrs of physio. I have now got a better light.

Mine was years ago with a couple of commuter lights, good fun but really slow and scarey - up at Ashton Court (Bristol), back in the days before night riding became anything at all and night rides we unusual and there were no lights.

I gave up for a bit, had another forray into it in around 2000 with better lights.

Have been riding at night regularly for about 3 years now and absolutely love it! It doesn't feel like a week without 2 evening rides. Don't think I would do much (well any) if there was't a big group of us getting out!

I think my first night ride was is 2000 with a 10W smart light set in Epping Forest. Its was like nothing I'd ever done before. These days, I barely differentiate night and day riding.

Same here. In fact I still think I have my old Electrons in the garage. You raise a good point about struggling to differentiate between night and day rides. I think that some of the lights today are just to powerful and bright. Why bother to do a night ride if your super high beam light makes it look like daylight. Much more fun to ride with enough light and get the thrill of the ride at night I reckon.

My first proper one was only last year, but after that I tried to fit at least one in every week during the winter. Everything felt faster than usual and I managed to get lost on trails I know like the back of my hand usually.

Took a while for the badgers to come out but they were terrifying when they did. The last thing you want to do is surprise one coming round a corner and dump yourself on the ground in front of it while it hisses and growls like a hellcat 😳

I'll be charging up my batteries in the next couple of weeks.

Why bother do a night ride if you super high beam light makes it look like daylight

Because lots of people ride at night due to necessity rather than choice, obviously.

First night ride was about 7 yrs ago. A couple of converted hairgel tins with 20W halogen bulbs inside.

Well addictive, its amazing how little you stop when nightriding on your own 😆

I went out for the first time this year in February.

It was cold and I was a bit apprehensive at first, but I really did enjoy it.

I am not looking forward to this winter, in fact I really hate darkness, but night riding is something I do enjoy and it makes up for the lack of daylight.

First was with a bar mounted DX torch last winter. Found out the hard way that a light on your head is pretty useful when rounding a sharp corner and seeing a tree stump at the last moment just before I hit it. Bought another light and been great since. Never seen deer in my local woods in daytime, but there's loads at night. Where do they go?

Night riding sounds amazing. What's the deal with night riding at Ashton Court? Not worried about lions, more the urban park-at-night crowd of ne'er-do-wells.

Took my mate out for his first one last week, he loved it even after getting knocked off after hitting a badger at full speed and killed a rabbit 🙂

Off on my 1st night ride of the year tonight. Doing some hill repeats then a short night ride around the back of Cissbury to the SDW and back. Hoping to do a few before D2D this year. My 1st ever night ride was at D2D last year. In at the deep end as they say.......

The animals making noises instantly become werewolves and anything that flies is almost certainly a vampire.

So true !

Because lots of people ride at night due to necessity rather than choice, obviously.

This is true for me.

The other thing about night riding is the blatant trail work you can get away with on main ROW (or indeed, non ROW) without worrying about witnesses.

So I've been told. 😈

My first night ride was some local bridleways as a complete newb with a couple of mates who weren’t. I only had some crappy road type light thing on the bars. All went well right up to the point where the BW suddenly dropped down through a hedge from one field into then next. This being the point when I realised that I needed better lights to ride off road. Basically, although unaware of it I’d been riding in their light. They disappeared from view and so did the trail. This was followed by the sensation of flying sans bike…….. As with parachuting its not the fall that gets you it’s the sudden stop at the end that does the damage. So one rib later that was me off the bike for 6 weeks.

Mind you the pluses obviously outweighed the minuses and so a lasting friendship with the night was born of that experience.

I rode over a badger on a night ride! Big bugger just shuffled off as if nothing had happened (according to the guy riding behind me)

It then curled up in a bush suffering a slow painful death from multiple fractures and internal bleeding.

The best Night rides are when it's snowed, you can t beat it

No, KT it didn't. It invited me round to tea the next week and we had a good chuckle about it...

Mark N - Member

Why bother to do a night ride if your super high beam light makes it look like daylight(?)

1) so i don't have to give up riding after work for 7 months of the year...

2) so i can see enough not to crash horribly.

3)

Scienceofficer - Member
the blatant trail work you can get away with on main ROW

I ride techy stuff quicker at night coz i'm not looking for lines or bottling out of stuff (cant see the scary stuff). Not fun when your light packs in half way down a hill though.

My lights once packed up at half ten at night in total darkness in Llandegla forest.As usual I was at the back. It was so dark I couldn't even see my feet to walk down. I just had to stand there until the lads figured out i was missing and came back for me. It seemed like an eternity

Now.... forests don't seem that noisy at night. Try standing in one on your own in the middle of the night. There's an unseamly amount of rummaging and rustling going on. All I could think about was the Blair Witch. I was absolutely bricking it!!!!

I'm very much overdue a night ride, it's been many months. Reading this I might well venture out tonight 😀

Behind the church in the middle of Kirkcudbright

However my 1 st mountain bike nightride was Dalbeattie 4 years ago and I reckon night riding is better than day light cos it feels edgy

Never been at night, but Swinely (particualarly the labarynth) at dusk when theres absolutely no-one arround gives me the heebies!

foxes that look like lions

Mate, if you have to look down, it's not a lion.

I night ride all the time for training and I am fed up with it. Pain in the balls it is.

And no lights make it look like daylight, no matter how bright they are. Because they are shining from you outwards, so everything has shadows behind it, and you can't see past things because the shadows are bigger than the objects themselves.

Can't wait to try night riding after reading all above. newbie to mtb here. Thought I was going to have to wait til next Spring 🙂

Thanks for all your replies. I've loved reading about all your night-riding experiences. 😀

My 1st experience of night riding was last years D2D, it certainly opened my eyes..... I hired an exposure maxdd and thought it was brilliant (no pun). So this year i have just bought a ssc-p7 1200lm led light of ebay for £50, used it for the first time tues night and it was great. We saw a fantastic sunset and 5 deer flat out on the SDW near Cissbury!!! Havent been spooked yet but last year during D2d i was riding for at least 15-20 doing on own throught the forrest amd it was a tad eerie.

Out at Kirroughtree last night 1st ride of the season oops one rider got out of A/E at 1 30 am after 9 stitches in leg and my brother broke his helmet and maybe his nose.
I was trail running cos of broke finger , night running thats the thing

Dusk rides - best of both. I love heading out about an hour before sunset and coming home an hour after...brilliant 🙂