Lighting Systems Part 1

Some night riding will be required if I want to complete the CTR in the shortest possible time. I may not be fit enough to ride all day and ride a significant amount at night, but there may be days where I get a late start, or days when it makes sense to stop due to cold or dangerous weather. So having the option to make up time after dark is very desirable.

I have experience night riding just for the fun of it, and at races like the 24 Hours of Moab. I'm comfortable riding technical single track at night because even the older Niterider lighting systems that I own are extremely bright compared to standard camping headlamps that most people are use to.

However, the CTR creates some challenges for the typical high lumens bike lights. These lights use a lot of power, and therefore have dedicated battery packs that require hours of charging between use. If things are going well, there will be limited opportunities to recharge the batteries during the CTR. One option is to carry extra batteries, but the batteries can be very expensive, and are heavy. Some lights have multiple power settings that allow for up to 6-7 hours of use, but that probably wouldn't be enough to get through the CTR. Also, cold temperatures in the mountains could reduce the battery life.

So my goal is to find a lighting system that is as bright as what I'm currently used to ( roughly 500 lumens ) but that also has a low power option that will provide 15 hours of use or more when the terrain doesn't require as much light, like when climbing. In the past, high end lights typically had a detached battery pack that the rider stored in a pocket or backpack, and a power cord that ran from the battery to the light mounted either on the rider's helmet or handlebars. There now exist excellent lighting systems that package the battery and light into a single package. These tend to be lighter and have no cord to manage, but won't have the lumens or battery life of the external battery systems.

It turns out that these days there are a great many different light manufactures and models. It's not my goal to review all these systems, but you can check out this article on MTBR to browse the various options.

http://reviews.mtbr.com/2013-bike-lights-shootout

There is a lot of information in the above article, but it was difficult to determine which models had lower power modes. I decided to fallback to the incumbents, and go directly to the NiteRider and Light & Motion web sites.

The products that stood out for my needs was the NiteRider Lumina series. These lights are combined lights and batteries, range from 350 - 650 lumens,  have low power options with up to 18 hours of use at 40 lumens, and are quite light ( no pun intended ). These lights have a solid looking handlebar clamping system ( The 650 also includes  helmet mount ) that is much improved over previous handlebar mounts from NiteRider. To top it off, the high end 650 model can be purchased online for $118-$140. Considering that  my last lighting system from NiteRider cost over $400, this light seems to be a bargain. If they pass my field testing, I may just buy an extra and use it as a backup.

I purchased the Lumina 650 online for $104 and although I haven't used it for any technical night rides yet, it looks like it will work out very well. The 40 lumen mode is still very bright and the beam it casts is very good. I'll have a chance to to test it on some of the over night training sessions coming later in the plan. I have not tried using my GoPro at night, so I might try to capture the night riding experience in a video that I'll include in a follow up post.

http://www.niterider.com/lumina-650-2013/