Night riding Light for a 9 Yr old?

I took my eldest out for a ride yesterday afternoon that accidentally turned into her first night ride when we chose to extend it. Using just my emergency “Get me home” lights to light the way home.

She coped briliantly, but if we’re going to do that again she’s going to need a better front light to see by. We’re not talking Gnarly Trails but there was a bit of navigating between trees in the dark which she struggled with slightly using a 160 Lumnen commuter light.

I’m initially thinking a Bike Hut 500 Lumen jobbie as it’s cheap, self contained, not too heavy and probably has adequate output, unless there’s something a bit better for a 9 year old to use (suggestions?)…

Oh and I think she might want a dropper now (27.2) after seeing mine… But that’s a separate discussion.

I have been night riding with my son since he was five (he’s seven now) and he has one of these

https://www.wiggle.co.uk/moon-meteor-x-auto-pro-front-light

which i thought was a 500 lumens one but turns out its a 450, anyway it does the job for him, i mostly ride behind him so the light on my helmet shines the way aswell. We do some of the gentler trails in the surrey hills with it.

moon have brighter ones aswell

https://www.wiggle.co.uk/moon-vortex-front-light

they seem pretty good quality and a good balance between price and brightness, i have an older one as my commuter light.

the 500 Lumen bikehut will be fine for the task – I had one before swapping it for the 1600 and its plenty of light for moderate speed riding in the dark.

Incidentally I’ve been going out with my lad (7) for night rides through the woods and he loves it too. We do a few miles, stop for a snack and turn our lights off so we can see the night sky then trundle back. He’s using my old magicshine and I have the bikehut on 640 mode which is still plenty of light.

I think I’d be tempted to go for the 1000 lumen one as you’ll probably find the kid will get faster as they get used to riding in the dark. More lumens the better..
The LED’s in there should give a fairly nice spread of light too.

I’ve got the BH 1000 already, and TBH 500 is probably going to be plenty… we could always swap lights if she want’s moar owl melting powar!

She’s not really likely to become Rad^Gnarr anytime soon, plus Halfrauds have put prices back up again on their BH lights, I don’t quite reckon the BH1000 is worth the current £40 asking price…

Actually it might be a useful experiment just to take her out next weekend on the same route, equiped with my BH1000 but set it on half(ish) power and see how she gets on… If she really needs 1000 lumens then fine but I don’t really think it’s a worthwhile investment, I’d rather spend the difference on better tyres for her…

Cheers all…

I’ve been riding with my 7 yr old son in the dark recently. I bought the Bikehut 1600 light as it’s quite to attach to bars so could go on my Brompton etc. Turns out it’s also pretty good on his bike so we’ve taken the dog for a walk in the park together instead of me on my own

He’s loving it, we have the bikehut light on the 2nd dimmest setting (our park is all paved), I’m still using my BT40s

A light with a self contained battery pack makes this so much simpler

The Moon vortex for just under £30 online (usually) is pretty neat. 600 lumens on overdrive, 300 on next highest setting. It’s really small and light in the bars and you can get a helmet mount too should you fancy one. I’ve got that and the Vortex Pro (and the meteor auto x) and they’ve been very reliable so far.

Nothing like the bikehut 1600 though – I have one of those too and it’s massovely bright!

My 9yr old uses my bikehut 1600 (on the 700 or 1000lm settings)
What size/bike is she on cookea?
Mine’s on a 24″ wheel spesh hardtail and I’d been thinking of giving her one of my smaller 26″ wheel bikes. She’s tried out my DJ/slope bikes (400 ish mm reach, 14″ seat tubes) and both are still a little big.

Mine are on oldish mtb batteries lumenators. We are done on the very cheap like solarstorms with duff batteries and head units filling up with water. Every year we have a few months of nighttime weekly club sessions + a few other night rides for fun, so having a decent amount of light available helps them, + they don’t go any slower at night either. Battery life is now down on both units to about 2hrs on full so still good enough.

So I would recommend going for as bright and as durable as you can afford and then you won’t be upgrading later on.

@geex – She’s on a charge cooker 24:

But with a different saddle…

She really likes riding it, still needs some tweaks (slightly spinner top gear, better winter tyres, possibly a mud hugger?) but it’s been an excellent bike so far, she’s not tall for her age so I’m not going to be moving her on to 26″/650b for at least another 12-18 months…

Cheers. Didn’t even know Charge did kids bikes.
Oddly I had one of those Freeagent saddles too.
Mine’s only just turned 9 but fairly tall still reckon it’ll be about 18mths-2yrs before it’ll make sense moving up to 26.

My lucky little five year old has inherited my old Exposure Diablo!