The darker the shadow …
…. or so goes the melancholy song sung by the Australian singer Stephen Cummings.
When one lives in a mostly hot place, as I do in summer, sometimes the only time to have a pleasant long ride is at night.
I use both dynamo and battery lights and mostly ride in suburban back streets with patchy lighting, in well lit city streets for short distances and for long distances on unlit bush cycle paths. One would think that the unlit areas need the brightest lighting, but in reality I find that less light is needed, for example, on the very dark Fernleigh Track than for areas with patchy street lighting or city streets with car traffic.
swansea rsl from the bridge
The reason why appears to be that the eyes become adjusted to the relative darkness and can perceive the headlight’s beam faintly enough to see at a further distance than when it is washed out by patchy light/dark ambient lighting in the suburbs or by dazzling distractions in the city. Rabbits, small tree branches, the occasional dangling spider web and light-less walkers (rare) are the only likely dark obstacles to passage on the track at night, and there aren’t many sharp corners either.
two horizons, swansea channel
I recently tried an experiment with a helmet mounted headlight to see if that would improve my city and suburban riding ease, and it did work well there, however in uniformly dark areas like the Fernleigh Track, I found myself wanting to turn it off. Why ?
fernleigh – dark maybe, but not as dark as it looks !
The beauty of riding the Fernleigh Track at night is the sense of peace, quietness and alone-ness, with just an adequate envelope of light around yourself and the bike, in my case adjusted for speed variation via the 3 brightness levels on the Cygolite 170 lumen that I use on my Road King bike for night commuting ). Oncoming riders with super bright LEDs in your face can be extremely disorienting and I don’t want to be another of those. For the same reason I don’t ever use the “epileptic” fast flicker modes (if I may be so unkind), as they are that annoying to me it’s like asking to be run over ( lol ).
the lezyne with bar clamp on the cecil walker
Listening to frogs and crickets in the dark while the wind rustles by is one of the joys of this ride that can be spoiled by visual overload. With the helmet mounted Lezyne Power Drive (400 lumen – usb) light running as well, I felt as though I was ‘roo spotting or something ! Also, the particles of moisture in the air were lighting up in the beam causing an obscuring and unpleasant bright fog in front …. sigh.
stockton shared path – a beautiful ride, but tricky at night
Where the helmet mount does excel though, is on winding paths like the Stockton Hunter River side where one can then see around dark corners before taking them, avoiding the need to quickly wriggle the bars to get a peek around, as well as for pot-hole spotting on suburban streets in the darkness between street lights.
lezyne helmet mount with velcro strap is in the “loaded” kit
As an aside, there is a certain poetry in the dynamo lighting systems that automatically brighten up as one travels faster, and modern dynamo hubs like the one on my Gazelle have very little pedalling resistance compared with my 1950′s Millers for example. And, of course, they are virtually maintenance free. I merely take a good head torch on long dark rides on this bike in case e.g. puncture repairs are needed.
dyno-power!
Also, while the modern single LEDs are very bright they often seem to concentrate in a narrow beam, perhaps by design and perhaps because of the tiny reflector area and the pinpoint LED source. My halogen B&M Lumotec gives much more light spread to the sides. Sadly you can’t easily swap bikes with these, but if you have only one “night bike”, it may be the way to go.
Incidentally, the main reason that I bought the Lezyne was because the retro Soma “Torpedo” that I fitted is not sufficiently bright for a potentially faster bike like my Cecil Walker, although it does look beautiful. It’s more suited to lower speeds, as one might have guessed !
the soma torpedo AA headlamp is beautiful and clever – but not at speed – the lezyne micro drive usb rear is on the seat post
If you buy one of the Lezyne lights, try and get it with the “loaded” kit that comes in a padded hard case with the light, q.r. bar mount, helmet mount, usb cable and an extra battery – and also lash out on a couple of extra quick release bar mounts for your other bikes. Almost essential, if you have several bikes as I do. The bar clamp allows a small amount of side to side “parallax” type adjustment that is very handy too. This should be the last light that I buy for a long time.
the excellent “loaded” kit, with the spare battery and its protective cylinder
I also have the Lezyne “micro drive” USB rechargeable tail lamp, its brightness is excellent, and I really like the slow pulsing mode that has no flicker. The mount is a simple silicone strap that so far has caused no problems, but it would be worthwhile getting spares of these too, methinks !
There are plenty of customer reviews for the Lezyne on the Wiggle UK site.
bench seat, swansea channel
Happy Riding !
“…while the modern single LEDs are very bright they often seem to concentrate in a narrow beam…My halogen B&M Lumotec gives much more light spread to the sides.”
This isn’t because of LEDs per se, but the design of the light. Most battery-powered LED headlights, no matter how nice they be, are overglorified flashlights. It’s all about the optics. My B&M dynamo powered LED headlamps give a nice “throw” and focus the light downward, towards the road. Say what you will about the Germans, but they know how to design a heck of a bike headlamp!
They sound like a great set of lights Peter. I don’t feel like I do enough night riding to justify such a set, I have a set of cheapies that work fine for what I do, I’ll write them up at some point. I like riding at night in the heat too, just a shortish ride to the beach, hadn’t thought of doing Fernleigh, it seems scary to ride it at night.
To be fair, the Lezyne does cast light to the sides and down near the wheel, it’s just that the centre spot appears to overwhelm it a bit. Guess it’s good to have more brightness where the wheel is headed. Yes, the B&Ms are great lights.
Haven’t had any issues so far on the track at night Vicki. The downhill from Whitebridge to Redhead can be hairy at speed if your lights aren’t up to it though !
riding at night on the Fernleigh track should be avoided as too many hazards.Pedestrians,debris not visible,abandoned shopping trolleys,blinding headlights.Groups of skateboarders in dark clothes. The stop to pass rule makes the trip too slow at night.Imagine a puncture on a wet rainy night on a section with no off path area.
All these things are vaguely possible, though last ride I had, around 9:30 pm on a thursday – no obstacles, no rain, and no other people at all, the whole way – magic ! There is more danger in road traffic I think. Individuals should decide for themselves, yes.