Night cycling?

Trojan

Many of you folks do it? Not necessarily talking about the MTB version.

Wasn't up for sleeping earlier so came up Howth. Lovely & quiet.

(posted from Howth)

Jawgap

Trojan wrote: »

Many of you folks do it? Not necessarily talking about the MTB version.

Wasn't up for sleeping earlier so came up Howth. Lovely & quiet.

(posted from Howth)

I prefer early, early morning "stealth missions" - in work now having done a couple of hours - got up at 4-45am!

The girlfriend just loves when I do these mornings!!

blorg

I did a fair bit of this last winter, including a few jaunts up the Wicklow mountains. The longest was Dublin-Galway leaving Dublin at 2am with TinyExplosions. Dawn came around 125km in, in the peat bogs of Offaly. Cycling at night is a very peaceful experience, I enjoyed it a lot.

Idleater

blorg wrote: »

Dawn came around 125km in, in the peat bogs of Offaly.

Nice pictures.

DualFrontDiscs

blorg wrote: »

I did a fair bit of this last winter, including a few jaunts up the Wicklow mountains. The longest was Dublin-Galway leaving Dublin at 2am with TinyExplosions. Dawn came around 125km in, in the peat bogs of Offaly. Cycling at night is a very peaceful experience, I enjoyed it a lot.

What was your lighting setup? For seeing and being seen? I'm always interested in this. Was looking for a small strobe light on a whip aerial for a while, for cycling on country lanes with high hedges and boy racers or for highlighting the BOB trailer.

DFD.

AstraMonti

Idea (possibly ridiculous)

We can organize a friday night spin.. Lets say we ll leave dundrum at 10pm and we will back at 4am .. Would be really interesting going over the mountains at that time!

tunney

I did loads as well. Good strong lights and hi vis jackets a must.

Raam

I'll be doing an endurance race in August which will involve some night riding. To date, all I've done is commute at night. Should be, eh, interesting.

blorg

DualFrontDiscs wrote: »

What was your lighting setup? For seeing and being seen? I'm always interested in this. Was looking for a small strobe light on a whip aerial for a while, for cycling on country lanes with high hedges and boy racers or for highlighting the BOB trailer.

DFD.

Fenix TK-11 torch on the front, Smart 1/2 watt LED on the back. The Fenix gives you tons of light and makes you extremely visable, cars waiting to pull out on side roads would wait even if I was half a km down the road, must have thought I was closer or a motorbike. It is very compact too and spare 18650 Li-Ion batteries are small and easy to carry. I used it on high power mode and the battery did me as far as Tullamore before I changed it, you could certainly get by on the standard beam either and that gives you 13 hours/battery. I got mine from www.thephotonshop.co.uk who were very quick and good to deal with.

Trojan

I like bright lights

I got a Light & Motion ARC NiMH, usually run it at 550 lumens (instead of 675) to get ~4 hours.

Rear is a Planet Bike blinky. Extremely bright given that it's a 4 year old LED.

I'm on for a night ride. I don't know about the lights in group riding at night, we'd probably want rear lights turned off, and probably go bar mounted rather than helmet mounted so we don't blind each other.

Jawgap

Night rides.......???

I'm all set.....

AstraMonti

Jawgap wrote: »

Night rides.......???

I'm all set.....

Are we going to find Predator?

blorg

[img]http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/7963/bike.bmp]Put that man on a bike[/img]

Jawgap

Helmet to keep the ol' noggin protected......

NVGs to see where you're going at night.....

Headphones to listen to some tunes while cycling.....

Radio to call up the support car when you need it....

Every cyclist should have one.

Plus, reading some of the threads here it makes cylcing in Irish cities sound like downtown Mogadishu, so you may need to send for these guys to clear the road ahead......

DualFrontDiscs

This is the setup I use for commuting and longer night rides:

It's dual B&M Lumotec+ (switched) headlights, running in primary and secondary mode (I only use one for commuting) connected to a Schmidt SON hub. Both lights have 'standlights', so keep going for a few minutes even if I stop.

For additional attention grabbing I have a CATEYE EL410 on the handlebars.

On the back I have a B&M 'solid' light with a big reflector. It's not on the bike in the picture, but also a wide beam CATEYE rear light and you can't see them but there are Scotchlite-like reflectors on the mudguards and rear rack.

I think it's a solid setup and goes for ever (standard caveats apply!)

I've put reflectors on the wheels since the picture too.

DFD

Jawgap

AstraMonti wrote: »

Are we going to find Predator?

With those dreads I'm sure he's already working as courier - I'm sure I saw him at the back of the Central Bank one evening.......:)

Vélo

I've the Fenix LD20 on the front and the Blackburn Mars 4.0 on the back for commuting in the dark along with a couple of these also (The firefly Supernova).