Mountain Biking at Night: First Solo Night Ride

Mountain Biking at night is a whole new ride. limited visibility (depending on your lights) silent surroundings, and animal eyes shining like beacons out of the bushes as you ride by. At one point I saw a pair of eyes following me in the air, a bit weird until I realized it was a bat.

Summer time here is brutally hot in the daytime, especially on the south facing slopes that I ride, but nighttime cools off substantially making it bearable to ascend without melting through your shirt. For my first night mountain bike ride I took two lights, a 60 lumen Black Diamond Spot Headlamp worn around my forehead (above), and a 1 watt Planet Bikes Blaze 1W (below) that I mounted on my handle bars. I wanted to initially just get out in the night to get a feel for the darkness while riding and how it would turn out. I have a NiteRider light but it needed to be recharged so I opted for the two other dimmer lights mentioned for the time being.

Starting out, the last hints of daylight were fading fast so my eyes were already dialed-in to the faint light by the time I turned my lights on. At that point the lights seemed to give out plenty of light, my eyes adjusted quickly and I was able to make out the trail ahead of me with no problems. I was climbing at this point, so I wasn’t setting any land-speed records. I imagined that I wasn’t going to be able to open up all the way on the downhill as the beams of light would probably not give me enough reaction time to any fast approaching rough terrain I might have to instantly negotiate. Turns out I was correct. On the downhills I had to descend a little slower than I would have in the daylight, but riding in the dark, alone, on a silent mountain trial was a cool experience that made me not mind the slower speeds.

As mentioned I had the Planet Bikes Blaze on my handle bars, this gave me a fixed front-facing beam at all times. The Black Diamond Spot on my forehead was useful to be able to point the light around sharper corners to see what was coming up and to point into the bushes when I heard a sketchy noise. The light patterns can bee seen above, with the Black Diamond headlamp beam on the left. The lower light on the handle bars gave better depth perception, being lower it would cast a shadow from rocks sticking up in the trail ahead, this allowed me to judge the size of the obstacle. The Black Diamond headlamp was good to point in any direction needed, but usually it was pointed just past the beam of the light on my handle bars, this way my light patch was increased and also avoided lighting out the shadows that were cast from the lower light. I quickly learned the best way to maximize the lights, two lights gave a highly adaptable set up.

Here is a shot of the final part of my ride coming out of the canyon and seeing the city lights below. I’ll be riding again at night this week. I’ll be using my NiteRider light that should be like a spot light, but now I have to decide if I’ll post it on my handle bars or on my helmet where I intended to mount it. Has anyone else gone night riding?