MTB night riding - how many watts, where?

My general rule is if I have one powerful globe and one weaker globe,
the weaker goes on the handle bar and the powerful on my head.

I found it fine to ride around on the recent 12 hour with only a 5w on
my bars and there was lots of twisty single track.

--

"hippy" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I've got some vistalite nightsticks and various
globes to suit.

I have a 5W, 2 x 10W and 2 x 15W globes.

For the 24hr race, would I be best to run
the 5W on the bars and the 10W on the
helmet or something different?

I think the 15's are overkill and would drain
the batts too fast (~1hr burn time per stick)
but I'm open for more informed opinions...

hippy

Are you doing the 24hr solo or in a team?? If you are in a team then you
might be able to run the higher wattage globes as you will have more time to
recharge battteries between night laps. If you haven't done a 24hr before,
I would highly recommend putting some form of identification on your
chargers and batteries as every man and his marathon bike racing dog have
nightsticks in the recharging tents (probably best if it is lairy and gumby
looking so that it becomes a less attractive item).

For solo, I reckon that the 10W on the helmet and 5W on the bars is the go.
I did Mont 24hr last year in a team of 6 and did most of the course with my
12V 20W (one 12 degree, one 38 degree) homemade halogen lights on the
handlebars and my homemade white led helmet light. I pretty much used the
38 degree one for the entire time apart from on fast fire trail sections
where i used high beam (12 degree). Of course, every time I came up the
straight to the transition area I turned on all the lights just to impress
the chicks (too bad they were all in bed, but I was impressed anyway).

Good luck with the race and with sitting down the next day if you are going
solo.

Gags

"Gags" <drgagnon@nospam_ozemail.com.au> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Are you doing the 24hr solo or in a team??

haha "solo" haha ;-)

Quoted message said:

might be able to run the higher wattage globes as you will have more

time to

Quoted message said:

recharge battteries between night laps.

Good point. I just wanted to avoid recharging as much as possible.

Quoted message said:

I would highly recommend putting some form of identification on your
chargers and batteries as every man and his marathon bike racing dog

have

Quoted message said:

nightsticks in the recharging tents (probably best if it is lairy and

gumby

Quoted message said:

looking so that it becomes a less attractive item).

Yeah, bikesoiler suggested that too - I've just gotta find that masking
tape...

Quoted message said:

For solo, I reckon that the 10W on the helmet and 5W on the bars is

the go.

Sounds good for now. I'll be trying that until I find I can run the 15's
without runnning out of juice too early. If it takes over 1hr to do a
lap,
I can't use the 15's for the whole lap.

Quoted message said:

Good luck with the race and with sitting down the next day if you are

going

Quoted message said:

solo.

thankyee!
hippy

I run a Cygolite Night Explorer setup (10w and 15w) - mounted on the
helmet.

In the 24hr this year I only used the 10w the whole way around - it
was heaps. However, it wasn't a particularly dark night - except in
some of the more dense forest.

I tried handlebar mounted lights and found that unless the track is
like fire trail then they aren't that useful - the helmet mounted
light points where you are looking.

The good thing about the handlebar light is that it shows up
dips/holes a lot better than the helmet mounted light as a result of
the angle.

I get 3hours running the 10w globe on the Cygolites....enough for two
and a bit laps of the MONT (or 3 if you are faster than me!!)

I guess you need to go out in varying levels of darkness (as well as
rain) and see how much light you need at night.

Whilst I haven't done the solo thing in the 24hr I would imagine that
you would want loads of light - so heaps of spare batteries - those
soloists do it tough at night.

I hope some of that is helpful!!!

Cheers,
Rob
Canberra

"hippy" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I've got some vistalite nightsticks and various
globes to suit.

I have a 5W, 2 x 10W and 2 x 15W globes.

For the 24hr race, would I be best to run
the 5W on the bars and the 10W on the
helmet or something different?

I think the 15's are overkill and would drain
the batts too fast (~1hr burn time per stick)
but I'm open for more informed opinions...

hippy