M
mikepenton
Guest
With the Nottingham night rides & Phil's canalside ride, this evening I
thought I'd have a go for the first time. particularly good timing as it
had just finished raining heavily & I had gone home from work early
feeling ill.
did I forget anything? yes - I forgot that the Muni was in the car and
that the car was 15 minutes walk away... anyway it was a nice walk.
I had a Petzl zoom headtorch and a £10 single-LED Cateye light (mounted
as low as possible above the forks) to show the way and some spoke LED
lights for the Blackpool illuminations touch. It wasn't particularly
dark as the low cloud was reflecting the London light pollution well.
it was a pretty flat, well trodden path with a little mud, leaves and
branches, but what a challenge! it's kind of... umm.... zen-like? I may
as well have been riding blindfold. The lights weren't bad, but subtle
changes in gradient were invisible. a few UPDs later I tried mounting
the cateye on my shoe, under the laces (taking the attitude of you're
not going to find out if you don't try!). a bit better, but off-putting.
2 may have worked... but I reverted to the mounting.
it was my shortest ride for a long time ( a mile maybe?) but I returned
covered in mud & itching to do it again, but with more lighting!
the questions:
what's the best lighting setup? I got the cateye as I knew it wouldn't
get in the way and I could get the right mounting. I'd like to know what
joemarshall's is but I imagine it's very expensive for a casual rider.
where do you mount the lights? the lower the better I assume, so you see
shadows & therefore terrain changes can be more easily tackled. I'm
probably over-paranoid about knee-room - is side mounting lights
common?
thanks in advance
Mike
PS - the under-the-laces idea could be good as additional secondary
lighting...!
--
mikepenton - sometimes level
------------------------------------------------------------------------
mikepenton's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/7090
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/35952
thought I'd have a go for the first time. particularly good timing as it
had just finished raining heavily & I had gone home from work early
feeling ill.
did I forget anything? yes - I forgot that the Muni was in the car and
that the car was 15 minutes walk away... anyway it was a nice walk.
I had a Petzl zoom headtorch and a £10 single-LED Cateye light (mounted
as low as possible above the forks) to show the way and some spoke LED
lights for the Blackpool illuminations touch. It wasn't particularly
dark as the low cloud was reflecting the London light pollution well.
it was a pretty flat, well trodden path with a little mud, leaves and
branches, but what a challenge! it's kind of... umm.... zen-like? I may
as well have been riding blindfold. The lights weren't bad, but subtle
changes in gradient were invisible. a few UPDs later I tried mounting
the cateye on my shoe, under the laces (taking the attitude of you're
not going to find out if you don't try!). a bit better, but off-putting.
2 may have worked... but I reverted to the mounting.
it was my shortest ride for a long time ( a mile maybe?) but I returned
covered in mud & itching to do it again, but with more lighting!
the questions:
what's the best lighting setup? I got the cateye as I knew it wouldn't
get in the way and I could get the right mounting. I'd like to know what
joemarshall's is but I imagine it's very expensive for a casual rider.
where do you mount the lights? the lower the better I assume, so you see
shadows & therefore terrain changes can be more easily tackled. I'm
probably over-paranoid about knee-room - is side mounting lights
common?
thanks in advance
Mike
PS - the under-the-laces idea could be good as additional secondary
lighting...!
--
mikepenton - sometimes level
------------------------------------------------------------------------
mikepenton's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/7090
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/35952