Night Riding tips - Mountain Mayhem

[fergus]

As I've never ridden at night, I have some questions:

1) If you assume that a lap will take around 60 mins (in the dry and daylight), what would be a "typical" time in the night (same rider & conditions, etc)?

2) Even though we are hiring HiD lights for the event, how bad is the fact that they will cast shadows over obstacles? Is this a problem? I think we've got 920 lumens light output per light (not sure how good this is?)

3) How technical was the course last year (excluding the weather) and is it the same course this year)? I will do some reccy laps on the fri, but just curious!

Any other tips for night riding?

[longblackcoat]

fergus said:

As I've never ridden at night, I have some questions:

1) If you assume that a lap will take around 60 mins (in the dry and daylight), what would be a "typical" time in the night (same rider & conditions, etc)?

Shouldn't take much longer, to be honest. I did my fastest lap at SITS in 2007 at 3am.

fergus said:

2) Even though we are hiring HiD lights for the event, how bad is the fact that they will cast shadows over obstacles? Is this a problem? I think we've got 920 lumens light output per light (not sure how good this is?)

900+ lumens equates to around 60w, so roughly the same as a car headlight. You'll have loads of light. If it's a bar-mount, you do get shadows but it's only really a big issue on very twisty sections

fergus said:

3) How technical was the course last year (excluding the weather) and is it the same course this year)? I will do some reccy laps on the fri, but just curious!

Not even remotely technical - it's really a very simple course, with only the mud to really make things awful. There are a couple of steepish descents, but in the dry they're fine. The problem last year was that parts of the course just dissolved in the rain.

fergus said:

Any other tips for night riding?

Not really - it's not as different as you'd think, though obviously you have to expect that even if it's dry there'll be dew on the grass in the early hours, so it'll get slippery. Other thing is that when you finish a lap you're all hot - as the temp at night might well be only 5 degrees it's easy to start shivering very quickly. Get out of those sweaty clothes the instant you finish a night lap.

[pdV6]

With decent lights, night riding can be as quick as in daylight - especially when you're lapping a course and know what's coming next.

920 lumen is loads; you'll have no problems.

The real thing to think hard about is burn time and charge times for your batteries.

[fergus]

thanks for the advice guys!

[WBC]

I am pretty much the same pace in the dark at enduro events. You will know the course pretty well by the time it gets dark. Also with lights you tend to be more focussed as there is less extraneous 'information' for you to process, you only really see the vital stuff. Make sure you have a light on your head as well as your bars (even if it is juts a headtorch) as even with the brightest lights on your bars you will want to be able to see around tight corners etc before your main light illuminates the way. Also if you have a mechanical you want to be able to see what you are fixing.

Fingers crossed it's dry this year!!

Edited by WBC on Thursday 11th June 16:46

[JPJ]

Echoing what the others have said, it shouldn't really affect your times much at all, however if you've not done any night rides before then try and do one or two over the coming week just to get a feel for it. Bars mounts are the most useful generally, but in twisty sections some form of illumination from a head-lamp makes a huge difference.

Oh, and good luck and enjoy it.

[Patrick1964]

Don't forget to wear a head torch as well as your bar mounted light - it's nice to have some light on your cockpit area, plus if you have a mechanical you'll be able to see where you're looking whilst you fix it.