With all the "XC" shenanigans taking up space on the blog of late it's perhaps time to try and redress the balance a little. Over the last couple of weeks Dunnie and I have (literally) embraced the dark side and dipped our collective toe into the lighting market. First off we have a couple of "wee bastids", the 50 quid 900 lumen P7 bike light, brought to you direct from DealTime Extreme in Hong Kong. These have been supplemented in my case by a USE Maxx Joystick helmet light whilst Mark has purchased a Silva L1 "The most powerful headtorch in the world - it'll blow a man's head clean off"........well not quite but it will light up singletrack so you can go really fast. Last night we gave our full set ups a bit of a test on Pitch and Holmbury. We started off at about 6.30 doing some riding in the dusky light, highlights of which included a broken chain for me (luckily Mark is something of an expert in these matters and soon had me trailworthy again courtesy of one of his spare SRAM magic links) and Mark finally conquering a double jump on the top of Pitch after about five refusals.
As the light began to fade we rode a few more of the good trails up on Pitch, where everything is running really well right now - this must be our Indian Summer!
We than climbed up Radnor Road and made our way to the top of Holmbury. It was properly dark now and we saw more rabbits than Watership Down, plus a few nocturnal walkers who were slightly startled by our combined 2000-plus lumen output!
We took on Yoghurt Pots which is clearly benefiting from a lot of work over the summer and running like a dream - only one bog in it and even that's now bridged by the smallest bit of north shore I've ever seen!
Our final run was down Barrie's, again a complete hoot. I don't know what it is about night riding but I'm completely addicted already - the woods are silent and empty and with a good lighting set up you can pretty much ride at the same speed as you can in daylight. There's plenty of wildlife to observe and whilst the trails are the same they somehow feel different.
Back to the car park in Peaslake we found a really steep roll in with a rooty step at the top which we didn't ride but is "banked" for our next trip!
A quick ride through the Surrey Hills with a group of 40 something mtbers who really should know better!
Is your Hong Kong light really 900 Lumens? That is insane - do you have to go bare chested because of the heat! Night riding is great, it does have that edge and big grin effect. My lights at present are pretty pants 10w and 20w probably no comparison to your setups plus I have no helmet light. Shoulder getting better hoping to head out soon. I am having a mare with my steerer tube, I think it is rotating in the fork crown, I dont think this is good. I got a new stem, fitted it and went for a short ride, when I finished a short down hill the handle bars were off line. Got any forks you want to sell?
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