zacster

and everything still works as it has for all the years prior. It felt great too. I retired August 2019 and have had no good reason to ride at night anymore, but while I was working I was all set up to ride day and night, good weather and bad.

My kit consists of my Shimano 3N72 dynamo hub, B&M CYO premium front light, magnic light rear, and the bike was just setup for commuting with removable everything, this being NYC where everything is stolen. I miss commuting too, I figure it was about half my miles each week. Yea, I could do it anyway but with Covid nobody else was out there at first. I'll have to try it again after the holiday.

And the bike is silent too, I'd forgotten how quiet that bike is compared to my road bike.

Retirement is good though, I can ride whenever I want.

Rage

Congrats on retirement and the night ride!
I miss commuting too. Getting to and coming home from work by bike was probably my favorite part of the work-day.
Not retired tho. Retirement is like twenty years away. Furloughed from work so I have plenty of time to ride.
Not the same tho. No racing against the clock to get to work lol.

Milton Keynes

I still work and so about the only time I can do my daily workout on a bike is 5 AM. Consequently, it's usually dark whenever I do most of my rides. I remember after weeks of early morning riding in the dark I set out on a Saturday ride. I noted how strange it was to be riding during the day when I could see everything instead of normally focusing on what I can see in the light of my headlight.

steelbikeguy

I've been retired for a few years and miss the commute too. I even took a picture of the bike on the last day of bike commuting....




I don't have many times when I need to ride at night, but I do still go out for a night ride now and then, especially in early and late fall. Being able to ride on the quiet streets and roads in warm weather is just wonderful! So much nicer than the ride home from work in the dark when it is about 10 degrees F out.

Steve in Peoria

jimjim58

I live out in the country and love getting out early and watching the sun rise as I ride.

noglider 

For the pandemic, my spouse and I moved into our weekend home in a rural area. I miss commuting by bike because it was enforced mileage. So now I take rides for the sake of riding. I enjoy that, but I wish it were more regular. I need more discipline.

I've only ridden at night once since coming up here in March. We were invited to a back yard distanced party which would end after sunset. It was about four miles away. I was surprised my spouse suggested we ride, but hey, she did. We took the tandem. Since we were on rural roads, I decided to be overly cautious. I used two tail lights and three headlights, one extremely bright. We were treated well as we usually are in this area.

I'm rebuilding one of my bikes up here, and it will have dynamo lighting. I do appreciate that. It needs so much less attention. You don't notice how much attention you give to a good headlight until you get to stop. That is, you don't have to mount, unmount, charge, the headlight at all. You just roll, and it never runs out of power. And it doesn't fall off or need adjustment, either.

Milton Keynes

That's a really cool picture.

zacster

I've gone out 3 nights now on the bike. This is one of my regular biking destinations but on this night we did not bike:



Ft. Tilden, NYC

Yes, this is about 45 minutes from Manhattan and maybe 20 from my house in Brooklyn. Maybe next week I'll do it at night.

fooferdoggie 

does riding in the haze and gloom from forrest fires the same?

ofajen

Of course, the more obvious reason is less daylight hours in the Northern Hemisphere, but we are also coming to cooler weather and soon there will be fewer bugs here to contend with, so more night riding! I did a couple of rides just after sunset this summer and down in the low lying areas the bugs would just swarm to the headlight.

Otto

zacster

That's just overkill. At least for me in NYC. There is one place in Prospect Park that has no street lighting and I do a quick side trip every time I ride through at night just to see how bright my dynamo light is and it is plenty bright, much brighter than I even think when I'm riding on the streets. And it spreads wide and far too with the lens and reflector it has.

cyclist2000

I did a night ride recently on a MUP along a small river, really enjoyed it, only encountered a few people, I did have a deer run across the path. I have the same problems with bugs, I have a headlight on the bars and a small lights on the helmet, bugs flying into my glasses, face, helmet and chest. I was thinking about a few things to do about this, maybe mount the handlebar light at the axle of the front wheel and bugs would be approaching closer to my feet. I really don't like the bugs getting into the helmet and into my hair, so I was thinking about a hairnet over the helmet to stop them from getting in, maybe wear a cap under the helmet too.

zacster

I didn't actually watch the video but I could see it was a trail. Even in very dark conditions though my light is plenty bright although maybe on a dirt trail I'd want even more.

noglider 

I haven't been riding much at night, because my spouse and I moved up to the country for the pandemic, and we pretty much stay indoors at night. A couple of nights ago, I wanted to see what it's like. We live on a very quiet country road. Light traffic makes it safe, and so does the extreme narrowness of the road, but we get an occasional irresponsible driver, so it's not perfect. (What is?) I just went up to one end and then back and then past the house a bit for a round trip of 1.4 miles. I was running a good quality Taiwan-made dynamo light (whose name I have forgotten) plus the China-made Xanes SFL-01 battery headlight. They both cast similarly-shaped beams (German-law compliant) with similar intensity. I turned each one off alternately, and the results were very close.

Neither light is ultra-bright, and the beams are not super-wide. They are slightly more than adequate for the task. I like swerve the bike left and right to get a sweeping view of the road.

Here are the lights.

zacster

It is NOT a low powered light. I've done plenty of research on lights, lumens, lux.

noglider 

That's an impressive beam.

cb400bill

This thread is already circling the bowl...