I recently started commuting 30 miles round trip to work. I will be working 4 days a week. The dilemma is that the homeward half of the ride will start at 9 p.m. I’ve always just rocked blinkies for night riding, but I think something like a halogen lamp with a rechargable battery may be better suited in aiding the avoidance of death cracks, kicker bumps and masturbating homeless men on the trails but I’m a bit clueless as to which one to get.
I’m trying to keep it within the $150 - $200 range. Something burly so if it in fact sees a spill I won’t be finding it in pieces. I’ve been recommended Nite Riders, but also am not sure of any difference in their performance. Input anyone?
I was looking forward to a thread about this…
I’ve also used Lite Brite pegs as plugs back when I was stretching my lobes. They were nice cause there were tons of colors and I got a gigantic bag full of them at goodwill for super cheap and cleaned them. up.
Half of my commute home is on dark roads and a pitch black bike path, the other half on reasonably well-lit city streets. For the first half I need lights to see, for the second I need lights to be seen. These have been great:
This will melt the road behind you. It’s truly awesome.
This headlight is pretty good too. I use this and first-generation dual Minewt Nite Riders.
One of the things I like about the Dinottes is they use rechargeable Nimh AAs. Easy to replace, cheap enough to carry lots and lots of them if you want to ride all night.
I also have a rack-mounted led taillight in case the Dinotte dies and I don’t notice right away. So three lights in front, two in back.
Nice! A friend lent me a Nite Rider MiNewt.X2 to use until I pick something up. I’ll see how I like it tonight I suppose. The AA-powered one seems interesting since I just bought 8 rechargables thinking I’d just build my own halogen rig. Figured it’d turn out to breakable. Anyway. Continue!
it really pisses me off when trails are not lit. there is one section of the burke-gilman in seattle down in the freemont/salmon bay area that has a shitload of roots that have pushed the asphalt up. sucks to ride on in the daytime, but when the sun goes down that path is a death trap.
Same thing with the south Bosque loop here. Runs along the river (the only place where trees can manage to grow) and the success of roots makes me feel like I’m riding BMX. That and the trails tend to randomly change direction and mislead you onto some rotten granite path you can slide out super easy on.
On another note I rode with the NiteRider last night and I have to say I’m impressed. I ran it at 50% brightness and it still did an incredible job of lighting the way. At one point I nearly ran down some extremely cute girl who for some reason did see/hear me coming. Had me miffed for a bit about the actual visibility of the light but I figured she was just caught up in conversation with her friend.
A friend of mine were talking about how easy it would be to put in solar powered LED lights that projected sideways onto a path to illuminate things and keep down light pollution. That shit would work so well here but the city really has its head up its ass on the sort of thing. All about greenwashing the whole town. I don’t know how well that would work in Seattle though…
