Oxbow/proteus – Guessing you’ve probably never even gone nightriding on your own, never mind tried it without lights, have you? 😕
In good weather conditions it’s very rarely pitch black at night (2 or 3 nights a month tops) and even in the woods the average human eye still can make out singletrack/trail features etc. but then if my guess is right and you’ve never actually tried it I don’t expect you to understand this. 🙄
Compared to natural mtb routes, most trail centre routes are piss easy to ride/memorise and being manmade the surface often stands out better in the dark than a natural trail might, you also rarely find much of a graded mtb trail centre route cut through particularly dense forest and all this only helps makes them easier to ride without lights.

I actually do enjoy riding at trail centres but FFS lets not kid ourselves that anything on then is anywhere close to properly technical. For a start every feature built at a trail centre goes through masses of red tape and is built to meet rigorous safety standards/grading criteria 😆

You’ve obviously got much better eyes than me.
Must have been all those lonely years at high school. 🙁

GW, aren’t you the guy whose eyesight is so bad that your inability to see results in you riding right over things, like people, that you come across on the trails rather than riding around them like any normal person would?

GW= awesome.

Guessing you’ve probably never even gone nightriding on your own, never mind tried it without lights, have you?

You’re right, I mainly stay in side wetting the bed when it is dark out.

Perhaps you could try using a series of mirrors to use the sun which you appear to believe shines out of your backside to light up the trails…

Oxbow/proteus – Guessing you’ve probably never even gone nightriding on your own, never mind tried it without lights, have you?
In good weather conditions it’s very rarely pitch black at night (2 or 3 nights a month tops) and even in the woods the average human eye still can make out singletrack/trail features etc. but then if my guess is right and you’ve never actually tried it I don’t expect you to understand this

Well as the person who originally commented on your claim, I’ve done lots of nightriding on my own, and even some without lights. I’ve also tried it through the woods at a trailcentre accidentally, and IME it gets so dark it’s impossible to see anything at all of the terrain you’re riding over. I carried on for a while trying to do it by feel, as I could just about make out where the trail went through the trees, but gave up before I had an UPD from not seeing a drop-off etc.

I have extremely good eyesight (20/10 vision or better), and more experience of moving through terrain in the dark than almost anybody else on here I’d imagine, with a preference for not using lights until I really have to (I often switch my lights off when running even when it’s properly dark). So I call BS on it being through proper thick trees at a trail centre. My experience of trying to ride without lights has been at CyB and Afan – the most recent on Y Wal, and when I was walking down I was feeling where my feet were going. When I tried to cut down to the main track quicker (because even walking with a bike was quite stressful) I didn’t see the big fallen tree in my way until I was a few metres away. I could ride on the double track when I got there as there was a gap in the trees letting light through.

My light broke when I was riding in the woods – could barely see enough to walk, never mind cycle.

aracer – having 20/10 vision is all well and good but not much use if you can’t navigate a trail using your memory and use outlying features etc to guide you. Sounds to me like you’ve been trying far too hard to focus on detail rather than using your peripheral vision/memory to judge where you are/where you’re going and what’s coming up.
Never ridden Afan or CYB and I don’t intentionaly look for trails to ride through dense woodland that I dodn’t know my way through well.
my memory for trails is probably quite a bit better than most.

I’ve ridden into the twilight hours at GT quite a few times now – trying to squeeze every last minute of riding out of the daylight. Would have to agree that with GT specifically in mind, riding in the woods quickly becomes nigh on impossible without lights, no matter how well you know the route.

That said, there’s no way I would have said anything – entirely up to them to judge the risks.

Maybe they were off into the woods for a heavy bumming session and had just dressed up as cyclists for effect..?

Would have to agree that with GT specifically in mind, riding in the woods quickly becomes nigh on impossible without lights, no matter how well you know the route.

Sorry, but you’re wrong.

Lulz.

I always say something in those situations. Not something polite.
I always receive abuse back. It’s the balance of life, old gits like me trying to warn young brave folk.

Spooky Woods in December, at 11.00 on a starless night (artist’s impression).

user-removed, I think I have been there, just beyond that tree on the left there is a small drop off, the landing has some raised roots at 45 degrees to the trail.
Watch out over those as they can be greasy

(I ride here all the time, blindfolded)

Regarding the riding in the dark with lights/without lights argument: Would you drive your car at night, without lights on the ground that ‘you know the roads’? Why is riding a mountain bike any different?

Anyway…would I have said something? Umm…possibly. Probably have started with a question along the lines of a polite enquiry as to their intentions and then offered my own experience and knowledge of the area to help inform their subsequent decisions.

ha ha… Spooky woods is a piss easy trail to follow built in a (now) thinned out forest with 5 tiny drop-offs and no raised roots on any of the landings (Neal – you’re not alone, there are plenty blindfolded/blinkered riders on here;) )

Why is riding a mountain bike any different?

you really want a list of reasons? start a new thread! STWers love nothing more than another pointless list thread 😉

Never ridden Afan or CYB

Ah, so you have no idea whether or not the following actually applies at two of the most popular trail centres (hint: not)

In good weather conditions it’s very rarely pitch black at night (2 or 3 nights a month tops) and even in the woods the average human eye still can make out singletrack/trail features etc… you also rarely find much of a graded mtb trail centre route cut through particularly dense forest and all this only helps makes them easier to ride without lights.

No. so enlighten me? you saying the official mtb routes at Afan and CYB are built through denser forest than say Gentress and Innerleithen?

5 tiny drop-offs and no raised roots on any of the landings

That’s a shock to me, I’m sure I can see them in the artists impression 🙄

I’ve been caught out at Afan in rapidly diminishing light. I know the trails there really well.
As someone put above it is very difficult to walk safely let alone ride.
I don’t have any idea about the Scottish centres you mention but Afan is a long way away from any town or street lights so it gets properly dark.

I’ve ridden at Llandegla at night with no bike-lights before.

Proof 😀

Genuinely wouldn’t have said anything, none of my business and I doubt I would notice.

Plus it’s only Llandegla, she could always just get off and walk if she wanted.

Has Llandegla been confirmed as the crime scene? I only mentioned it because one man’s 2 and a half hour black route is another man’s hour and the happy couple might have been safely back in the car park by 16:30.

Oh wait, actually the OP didn’t specify so not sure where.

Would you have said anything?

As most others have said – I would have passed the time of day with them and minded my own business regarding what kit they did or didn’t have

Too many busy bodies around that feel the need to comment on others

OK GW you say you can do it, I will take your word on it then.

How quickly do you manage to go? Sounds like a giggle I will have to try it. Knowing me though I will probably break myself!

Cheers Duane!! 😉 😆

How quickly do you manage to go?

Depends on the trail, some sections just as fast as in daylight some nowhere near. it’s not a race!
my favourite thing about riding at night just now is just manualing down the hill I live on with no lights, amazing feeling.

it’s just frozen round here and it’s a half moon so nightriding is just about to get a whole lot more fun 😀

Oh.. and Oxbow, if want to try it, I’d still take a light with you, ride somewhere local that you know really well and go out on a clear moonlit night first outing.. you should get a feel for it fairly quickly and once you’re comfortable in the dark you’ll be surprised by just how much you can see.

On a pig of a winter’s afternoon in January I ended up doing Dalbeatie. I saw nobody else for the entire route but there was one set of tyre tracks in the snow indicating one other person was ahead of me. Whoever it was must have been flying because the tyre tracks went straight over the slab (is that what it’s called??) and fired right through loose steep stuff and ice etc on the most risky bits of the trail centre course.

The point being…..these tyre tracks came from the sort of 26 x 1.75 semi road/off road compromise tyres fitted to 1980’s cheapo Raliegh MTBs, and had you seen the rider setting off on these tyres you might have been tempted to say something.

As it was the rider was performing WAY better than I was on WAY inferior kit.