Darkness ...

1speed

1speed

Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
I drove out to Wharton this afternoon after my last meeting to get a ride in with the warmer weather. Things did not go as planned. Started out fine - the trail was a bit soft and loamy - which I hate - but whatever. I started a little before 5, so I was all the way out at the dropout trail if you were heading back to Atsion Station before I needed my lights. And that's when I found out neither of them were working. Had to ride the last 10 miles without lights. The picture below is the best it was the rest of the ride back - it only got darker from there. Batsto is really not the best place to go without lights. It was awful - I had to use the little light on my phone and ride at like 6 mph just to see the trail in front of me. I had about a half foot of illumination in front to warn me where twists and turns were. And Batsto has a few of those. The last mile, this guy who I crossed paths with on his ride turned around to guide me back to the lot. So that was awesome. But overall? Not my favorite ride. And because I was going so slow after breaking a sweat earlier, I froze my ass off on the ride back. Would very much like to never do that again ...

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When I go out alone at night, I bring 5 Niterider lights, and I also always have a shitty headlight that takes AAA batteries, along with a few batteries. It always seems like overkill, but this makes me feel justified. Glad you made it back alright!
 
JimN said:
When I go out alone at night, I bring 5 Niterider lights, and I also always have a shitty headlight that takes AAA batteries, along with a few batteries. It always seems like overkill, but this makes me feel justified. Glad you made it back alright!
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That's a wise thing to do. And it's the kind of thing that personally I'd only learn to do the hard way, like I did tonight ... Thanks!
 
1speed said:
I drove out to Wharton this afternoon after my last meeting to get a ride in with the warmer weather. Things did not go as planned. Started out fine - the trail was a bit soft and loamy - which I hate - but whatever. I started a little before 5, so I was all the way out at the dropout trail if you were heading back to Atsion Station before I needed my lights. And that's when I found out neither of them were working. Had to ride the last 10 miles without lights. The picture below is the best it was the rest of the ride back - it only got darker from there. Batsto is really not the best place to go without lights. It was awful - I had to use the little light on my phone and ride at like 6 mph just to see the trail in front of me. I had about a half foot of illumination in front to warn me where twists and turns were. And Batsto has a few of those. The last mile, this guy who I crossed paths with on his ride turned around to guide me back to the lot. So that was awesome. But overall? Not my favorite ride. And because I was going so slow after breaking a sweat earlier, I froze my ass off on the ride back. Would very much like to never do that again ...

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If that was the Iditarod, u would be dead.
 
Been there. I usually have something as a spare but in the times that I have not, for some reason I can see pretty well even if it's really dark. My one riding buddy says I have deer corneas so I can see at night. It always pisses him off lol.
 
Oh my dear lord Marty, that sucks!
A couple years ago… OMG it was NINE years ago !!!! F#ck I’m old. Anyway, I was on one of those JORBA Wharton winter night rides and towards the end both my head and bar lights fizzled out in a twisty section. Thankfully I was in the middle of the group (those days are long behind me😳). It was an exercise in speed and timing control by seeing the rider in front turn and then in darkness blindly time your turn. Sometimes the rider behind‘s beams helped…. But usually didn’t. I captured some of it in a really crappy video. Gotta dig that up and laugh.
 
mwlikesbikes said:
I guess the full moon didn’t help much…
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Not much at all. I actually did a night ride once in Wiss with no lights (on purpose!) during a full moon because there was snow on the ground and that lit things up pretty well. The night sky was pretty well lit with the full moon last night, but the trails were just not reflecting any light at all.

I emailed MagicShine this morning to see if they can help me figure out what is going on. When I got home, I checked everything - both batteries are fully charged, I can't see any damage to the cords (no kinks, the connections look pristine). So I cleaned everything up and tried to reconnect., After abot an hour, I got the headlamp to work by connecting it while the battery was plugged into the charger. After that it seemed to work okay for a bit, but this morning I had nothing again. Oddly enough, i connected my old batteries from my last set of lights and they work fine. But I'm reluctant to call this just a case of bad batteries because everything on the batteries seems to work and when I chedk them with a meter, they both have power. If I had to guess, I think it might be the connector port to the cord. These come with a weird three-part connection - the battery plugs into the one cord, which connects to the battery by a connector port. That connector port has connecting leads to the battery leads, and if I had to guess I'd say there is some3thing sketchy going on there. I tried cleaning it, but that didn't help. So I'm going to wait and see what MagicShine says.
 
Getting stuck in the dark is no joke. I had my light die without warning in wildcat last year when the trails were leave covered and hard enough to follow in the day. Somehow I made it out and since then have always taken a spare light in my pack and always a helmet and bar light combo.
 
I was in Stephens one time and my lights started to die. I got trapped in a loop that I didn't know how to get out of and was pretty sure I was spending the night. That was until I found the one trail I needed that I kept passing. I know the trails MUCH better now and still wonder how that happened as there are trails all over where I was stuck. Anyway, it's never fun to get caught like that so a backup is definitely worth packing.
 
1speed said:
I emailed MagicShine this morning to see if they can help me figure out what is going on. When I got home, I checked everything - both batteries are fully charged, I can't see any damage to the cords (no kinks, the connections look pristine). So I cleaned everything up and tried to reconnect., After abot an hour, I got the headlamp to work by connecting it while the battery was plugged into the charger. After that it seemed to work okay for a bit, but this morning I had nothing again. Oddly enough, i connected my old batteries from my last set of lights and they work fine. if I had to guess I'd say there is some3thing sketchy going on there. I tried cleaning it, but that didn't help. So I'm going to wait and see what MagicShine says.
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Lose the MagicShine if you want to live. Guy who has two+ in a box in the garage.
 
Glad you got out safely.

A huge percentage of my riding is at night but I am rarely further than a few miles of “something” and have rarely been caught out but it is not fun when it did.

I am impressed that @JimN brings 5 lights plus a battery light.
 
stb222 said:
I am impressed that @JimN brings 5 lights plus a battery light.
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I normally only bring four, but when I'm going out solo I usually remember to bring the fifth. The battery light is just a shitty headlamp that weighs nothing and takes up almost no space in my bag. It's not nearly good enough to ride out with, but I'll at least be able to walk out with it if I need it.
 
You and JimN have reminded me to carry a spare light/battery. I ride with 1 bar and 1 helmet light, and only a a fraction of the time do I use both. But since I added the helmet light I stopped carrying a spare.

I still run my MJ 808 gen-1 Magicshine, and aside from replacing the battery, it's been more reliable than any other light I've owned.
 
one piece crank said:
You and JimN have reminded me to carry a spare light/battery. I ride with 1 bar and 1 helmet light, and only a a fraction of the time do I use both. But since I added the helmet light I stopped carrying a spare.

I still run my MJ 808 gen-1 Magicshine, and aside from replacing the battery, it's been more reliable than any other light I've owned.
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thegock said:
Lose the MagicShine if you want to live. Guy who has two+ in a box in the garage.
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I'm with @one piece crank on this one - I had a single set of MagicShine lights that worked perfectly for 10 years. I only replaced it last October because the wires themselves got frayed from use. The never failed - they just wore out. I kind of assumed these would be the same. Still waitingon world back from MagicShine.
 
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