Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle, bike, Bike Commuting, bike light, dark, headlight, light, minewt, night, nightime, niterider, usb
I had a good 21 mile round trip ride last night when I met a friend for dinner. The first half of the ride was before sundown, but the ride home was around 9:30, and it was really dark. Previously this darkness might have intimidated me, but no more… because I recently got a serious headlight for my night time riding!
I’ve written about my night riding before… bad experience here, but good experience here, and you can see that my attitude towards riding at night has changed. Early on in my bike commuting I purchased a very cheap (around $5?) bike light “just in case” I ended up having to ride at night. Well, now that my biking rhythms have somewhat stabilized I realized that I actually end up riding at night 2-3 times each week. That cheap little bike light did it’s job as best it could, but it just wasn’t intended for serious night time riding. It wasn’t very bright, and it had a very focused beam, so that you only ended up with a circle of light about 3 feet across, about 20-30 feet in front of you. That is not a lot of light when you are moving 15mph down a dark stretch of road. The other frustration with that cheap light was that it went through four AA batteries every 3-4 rides, and it was only good and bright for the first ride. I grew quite tired of buying batteries and then adding them to landfills within a few days.
With all of that in mind, I started looking around at “serious” bike headlights. I checked some things out online, and found out that REI was having a Labor Day sale, and had 20% off all of their NiteRider headlights. I went down to my local REI and was able to look at a couple of the NiteRider models and talk to a sales guy who owned one. I finally settled on the NiteRider MiNewt Mini-USB Plus LED Light. The “MiNewt Mini” part comes from the fact that this whole setup is extremely lightweight, around 175 grams. The “USB” part is a cool feature which lets you charge the battery either from the included AC charger, or by plugging it into the USB port on your computer with a standard USB cable (included). The “Plus” part is because this package includes a helmet mount kit so that you can easily mount the battery and light on your helmet, if desired. With the 20% off this package went for $99, which is a substantial investment, but I felt like it was a worthwhile expenditure given the amount of time I’m spending riding at night.
Other than a quick trip around the block when I first got it, last night’s big commute was the first time I was really able to test out the light on a good dark night. I have to say that is was great! The difference really is… wait for it… night and day. (groan) Seriously, I can’t believe the difference from my old light. The MiNewt not only has a focus point of brighter light in the middle, but it also creates an extremely useful bigger circle of softer light, probably 50 feet in diameter, which subtly illuminates peripheral elements. The effect is much more like a car headlight versus a simple flashlight. It is certainly not as bright as a car headlight, but the MiNewt still puts out over 110 lumens. Even with all of that brightness, the light should run about 3 hours on a single charge. I’m also very excited about the rechargeable part, so that I don’t have to keep buying batteries, and the fact that I can charge it at work from my USB port is a nice convenience.
The MiNewt is super easy to mount, in fact I take the whole thing on and off as needed. The battery pack has a velcro strap and I just put it on the gooseneck, and the light itself has a fancy rubber band (NiteRider calls it an “O Ring”, and that is what it is like) that you use to quickly strap it to your handlebars. One of the side benefits of this mounting hardware is that it is quiet. Huh? My old light had a mounting bracket that clamped onto the handlebars, and then the light itself clipped onto that, so that you could remove the light if needed. Well I never realized how much that old light rattled around in the mounting bracket until it was gone. There is no rattling with the MiNewt, and I never realized how nice and quiet a bike ride can be. I’m sure that sounds silly, but seriously, I hadn’t heard just the hum of my tires on the road until I took my old light off. Ahhh… how peaceful.
I realize that spending $100 on a headlight might not be an option for everyone, but if you find yourself doing a lot of night time riding I would encourage you to look at some of the more serious lighting options that are available out there. For me it has made all the difference in the world, and now I feel prepared to really enjoy “the dark side” of bike commuting.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bike, Bike Commuting, cars, commuting, dark, evening, night, night time, riding, struggle
Last night I had an evening obligation after work, so I ended up doing a 6 mile commute home in the dark.
If you read this blog, you may remember that my first night ride was very difficult and left me discouraged and dragging. I’m happy to say that the night time riding thing is getting much better. I believe that last night was the third night ride I have done since I started bike commuting, and it is growing on me. There are elements of it I still find a bit creepy, like being on a dark stretch of road with nobody else around except for that one car coming up behind you that seems to be awfully close to your side of the road, but I have had safe rides and have enjoyed the cooler night air. I think that most of my night riding phobias are just in my head, as I really haven’t had any problems with drivers, and the traffic is actually much lighter than during my normal daytime rides. The night time traffic is completely different, and last night it seemed that people were a lot more relaxed, out enjoying an evening drive with their windows down and their music playing. One thing I have noticed about night riding is that I have to play the mental game with myself a bit differently. I have noticed that when I start out at night I am fighting lots of inner objections as to why riding home in the dark is a bad idea. Of course, one of the best arguments with myself is that the only other option at that point is to walk, so of course the bike ride wins. I have also noticed that I am usually more tired than when starting my daytime rides, but if I allow myself to slow the pace a good bit and just enjoy the cool night air, and the night experience, then things begin to shape up and the ride actually becomes a rather pleasant experience.
How about you? Do you do much riding at night? Has it been something you enjoy, or something you have struggled with?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycling, bike, commuting, dark, headlight, late, light, night, overtraining, tired
Yesterday I had some evening obligations so I ended up riding straight to my meetings from work. My meetings went late, and I ended up riding home around midnight. I have a cheap head light that I got last week “just in case” I ended up in a situation like this. I also have LED blinkie lights on the front and back of my bike. Even so, I have to say that I found my 6.5 mile ride home in the dark a bit creepy. This was on regular suburban streets, and the traffic wasn’t heavy since it was so late, but there are several portions of the road that did not have streetlights, and it was DARK! It is a new experience to be pedaling along and to have the only area you can really “see” be the little four foot diameter headlight spot about 40 feet in front of you. I hit a couple of bumps that caught me by suprise, and I was fine, but I realized that I really needed to watch for “unseen” potholes and ruts. I have ridden this route in the daytime about five times in the last week and a half, so it was familiar to me, which was good, because I can’t imagine covering unknown territory at night under those conditions.
I’m sure my overall experience wasn’t helped by the fact that I was really tired. Not only was it late, but I think I have overdone my riding a bit this week. I’ve been so excited about bicycling that I’ve ended up running a few extra errands and things, and the routes I’ve taken have found me riding a good bit uphill most of the way home. I really didn’t want to get out of bed this morning, but I am able to work from home today, so I can get some needed rest. I’m still excited to be doing this, but I’m going to take a couple days off from riding.
What about you? Any night time riding experiences you’d like to share? How about riding too much? This blog is so new that I’m not sure there’s anyone out there reading this yet… but I thought I’d ask. Until next time…
Drive My Bike 