Night Riders

[rocknrollgirl]

Hi,
Any night riders out there? I am looking to get a bike light to do some night mt biking, and the darn things are so $$$$$, I want to make sure I get it right the first time. What do you have, and do you like it. Head light or bike light???

Thanks,
Ruth

[pkq]

Nite Rider HID - it throws lots of bright, white light, which are great for my old eyes. It's pricey but well worth it.

[Veronica]

We've been looking at lights since I'll be doing some double centuries this year. At least one of which has a fairly gnarly descent in the dark, so I want lots of light and lots of battery life.

I think I'll be getting the Jet Starfire - lots of light and a six hour battery life. I want a handlebar mount. I don't like the idea of something on my helmet. They have the same light for the helmet. It's called the Phantom.

My advice, don't try to make something cheap work. We have a bunch of CatEyes collecting dust in our garage. My current light is a Light and Motion Vega. It's great for night time road riding, not sure if it has enough side spill for mountain biking. It's battery lasts two hours.

Veronica

[Embellina]

I only ride a road bike, but maybe this will be useful to you or others in my shoes. I work nights and started bike commuting earlier this year. I bought a Nite Rider Trail Rat (about $100, can be adapted to go on either the handlebars or the helmet) and I've been very satisfied with it. Some of the streets I ride home are pitch black and it produces enough light for me to stay at about 15 mph and see clearly. I decided on the handlebar mount because I'm using to car headlights with a forward-looking field of vision. My LBS owner loved the Nite Rider products and other riders who I talked to before buying also recommended them.

[SadieKate]

I have an L&M ARC HID. I only have the NiMH battery so run time is only 3.5 hours on the low setting. The biggest Lithium battery will give you 6 hours on low. One reason I bought it is because it can be a handlebar mount or a helmet light. Seems the overwhelming number of mountain bike riders say you have to put your main light source on your helmet so the beam is always pointed where your eyes are aimed. For really fast or technical riding, you need to put a light in both places. For the simple flatland riding we're doing around here, I added a Cateye EL400 to my hemet just for a backup. When I do any night time trail riding, I'll switch. My bike goes where my head goes so I want the light to do the same thing.

Hubby bought a NiteRider Dual Classic because it has two beams and puts out a ton of light. The newer version has scaled down the size of both the light and the battery so it could be out on a helmet. This light is not an HID and I have to say I prefer the HID bulb in mine. I see better detail with it.

[Veronica]

Here are a couple of sites you can use to compare various lights.

http://www.mtbr.com/spotlight/lightshootout/

http://eddys.com/site/page.cfm?PageID=493

Veronica

[SalsaMTB]

I ride with a Nite Rider Evolution for both road and mountain (~$130). It gives off enough light for me to be comfortable. I just couldn't fork over the cash for a HID without knowing how serious I would be about night riding (which I ended up loving). I've been really satisfied with it and def recommend it. It can be mounted on the handle bars or the helmet, I prefer the helmet mount. While on the trail, it's obvious when someone has a HID, they're super bright, but for me, the halogen gets the job done.

Also, in case you don't already have one, be sure to get a rear light. They're pretty cheap and worth the money. You def need it for road riding and for mountain biking I found that many of the parks with the trails are closed so I had to ride a little distance on the road. I felt much safer with the rear light on for the short ride to the trail. For rear lights, I have two different kinds. One is a Nite Rider and has 3 LEDs in a row. You can set it to blink, stay on, or each LED blink seperately. It's a surprisingly bright light that can be seen from a decent distance. I like this light a lot and highly recommend it. The other light I got from REI and I do not like it at all. It was late, the lbs was closed and I was about to go for a trail ride and wanted a taillight. It's a Blackburn Mars 2.0 and a total piece of crap. It's big and bulky and doesn't give off even close to what the other light does. Lesson learned on this....just because it's bigger, doens't mean it's better