Night Riding With Industry Nine - Video

 Riding at night alone is kind of spooky. Your "alone", but your not alone. When someone else is there you laugh at how silly it was to be scared and think something was following you. But the next time you go alone it's back, and it's following you.

 Yup, that was pretty cute.

 @Boardlife69: I snapped a chain while night riding in Phoenix after seeing a handful of coyotes. I could hear something behind me on a long downhill. I was convinced I was going to be on the news. Turns out my broken chain had jammed in my crank and the noise was my chain dragging in the dirt.

 I wonder if the i9 hub noise would scare off mountain lions

 @bandit350: lol. I bet you were pinned the whole time thinking they're gaining on you. Stupid chain.

 @Boardlife69: I mean your not alone... your thoughts might be a bit extreme but I always find out i am right that something is watching me when I inevitably turn a corner and see a set of eyes glowing from my head lamp while they stare intently at me..... these are often deer and raccoons but still creepy none the less

Rad video!!! I love Asheville!

 @bandit350: but... coyotes? Who’s scared of them? They’re way more scared of us in my experience!

 @landscapeben: Generally yes, but when there's a pack of them that gang mentality can kick in where they get each other all hyped up. In the last few years I've heard of packs as big as 19 spotted in my area. The other problem we get is coydogs - when a coyote has bred with a domestic dog and the domestic dog side of it makes it less fearful of humans.

 @h82crash: they attack humans when in packs? I’ve seen a couple of coy-wolves out near Toronto, they were huge, wouldnt want to be chased by even one of those!

 if you've heard a back howl at night you will know what fear is. Sounds like a bunch of demons released from hell. Uncanny, almost human but otherworldly.

 @thorsbane: not trying to take the mick, but a what howl?

 @landscapeben: It's not common but has happened on rare occasion. They seem to be getting a bit more brave as they spend time near populated areas.

 @h82crash: Sheesh... that'll give you a KOM!

 Lights, practice, repeat.. The first few times in Pisgah proper are a bit hairy!

 My MTB career began riding Pisgah at night. Just makes better riders.

 @endlessbikegirl: I think we might have ridden together a few times...

 Heard Roanoke is pretty rad...

 It won't let me give more than one props for this comment, but I want to give it a thousand.

 this guy gets it

 Plus with two you get less shadows on the trail and more definition. Good to see them using helmet mounted lights. Bar mounts make no sense IMO unless you're a roadie.

 @fartymarty: I use bar mount with a diffuser lens and a helmet light with a tighter beam. I like that combo because I can take full advantage of the advanced capability of my eyeballs to rotate in their eye sockets. Which, at this stage of evolution, my breed hasn't managed to synchronize with some moving head helmet light .

 @vinay: I've got 2 wide angle lamps up top as I can't find a MR11 LED with a tight beam (the joys of DIY lights). My eyes and head are always perfectly in sync.

 @vinay: Same here, perfect setup for me

 @fartymarty: Wait.. what? If I can only have one light I prefer on the bar over the head because of shadows. Shadows give you better depth perception of obstacles. Ideally 2 lights though, one on bars for depth and one on head for seeing around corners.

 @Kyle201: But your bars are not always where you want your light. Your eyes / head generally are.

 @fartymarty: Agreed, though with a diffuser lens on my light and a wide beam, it really does go where where I want it even on the bars, though slightly lacking on fast corners and higher distances ahead. Just thought it odd that you figure it's better to have 2 head lamps to intentionally prevent all shadows with give you depth.

 There's no debate here...proper night riding essentially requires a bar and helmet light

 @nvranka: Damn i'm not doing it right then.

 @fartymarty: There is only one way to do it. No worries, we're here to help you.

 @vinay: cheers for being so supportive... I just need to find a way to rig up one bar light and one helmet light from one battery and not get myself in a big old tangle...

Seriously though has anyone tried www.brite-r.com . I'm on a budget so can't fork out hundreds of £££ for a set of lights.

 @fartymarty: Haven't heard of those. I run a first generation Lupine Pico on my helmet (their current smaller Neo is even more powerful) and candb-seen.co.uk on the bars. Both companies have excellent service though of course I love that Lupine does everything in house. If you're lonely, you can even send their dog an e-mail. candb-seen.co.uk is quite affordable, Lupine obviously isn't but I really love their products and after sales service.

 @vinay: C and B Seen look good. I'm on an old set of Lumicycles cases that I have rewired with MR11 lamps and about 650 lumens total (about 70W equivalent) with 9 hours of battery life. Im tempted to get something bigger on the bars but don't overly need it as mine are good up to about 20-25 mph before my field of view runs out. Lumicycle used to also be really good but haven't checked their stuff in a while.

 @vinay: WOW 900 euros for a light!!! I guess its 5000 lumens and very well made, but 900 euros.... I wish I was a dentist.

 @fartymarty: Yeah, German made by qualified people working under decent conditions. That comes at a price. I think Hope isn't far off, though of course you shouldn't necessarily look at their top of the line 5000 lumen model with bluetooth remote. I can't imagine what that'd be line. More or less broad daylight I guess. Either way I think my (first generation) Pico does about 550lumen or so (current model does 1500). And it is more than enough for the tighter stuff I'm running, especially as I'm already running something from the handlebars too. I guess their smaller Neo would be what I'd get if I'd buy one now. I do like that they keep stocking spares as I hate disposing something because of some silly component no longer being available. Last year I got a new battery (they collect your old batteries for recycling) and of course now that they produce higher and higher output lights, I'm getting insane run times out of my old light.

 @fartymarty: those look a lot like the MagicShines we can get on Amazon in the States--they're very bright but the beam is very tight unless you buy a diffuser, and all mine have failed. But for the price, they can fail a bunch of times and still be worth it...

 @fartymarty: Try the Victagen lights on Amazon. $22 a set and comes with a tail light too. Plenty bright. No helmet mount, though, but I'll be rigging one up. I like that they have an external battery pack that is USB charged.

 @bmck: sounds like a lot of unnecessary trash.

 @vinay: the Neo 4 would probably do the trick. They're pricey but ethically made.

 @endlessbikegirl: they're not great. but they sure are cheap! I now have a Gloworm X2 though, and it's incredible

 @Poulsbojohnny: I had something like this last year. It was about £20 from ebay and you ran it off a usb power bank. The light was really bright but very temperamental. I lost count of the times it failed on me and I had to ride home with a front blinky light.

This is why I went back to my home made lights (Lumicycle casings, battery and charger) because they work.

If I were buying another I would get one from a company (Brite-R or C and B Seen) so you can get spares.

 @fartymarty: I'm with you, I HATE having a cable attaching my helmet to my hydration pack for night riding. No matter how often I do it (which is a lot) I always forget and yank my head trying to get into my pack.

I would look into some single-cell cable-free lights, like the Light & Motion Trail 1000 FC Ranger (or the Urban 900 for something that is nearly identical for $50 less) for a light helmet light that will last long enough if you manage the brightness when you're climbing.

And for awareness sake: Brite-R is rebranded cheap Chinese garbage. If you want to roll the dice and slowly throw money on lights that are much, much dimmer than rated, have reliability issues, and have a history of shipping 4-cell battery packs with 2 failed cells in them, go for it, but if you're spending tons of money on bikes then you should spend more than a few $ on a light. M2C

 @Poulsbojohnny: Victagen is the same rebranded garbage as SecurityIng and Brite-R and 20 other random companies. I've taken apart 7 battery packs for various copycat cheap brands and 100% (meaning, all of them) have either had multiple bad cells, cells that are filled with sand, or been miswired (know those ghost stories about houses burning down? This is why). I highly recommend doing yourself a favor and investing more in a light than you would on dinner and a movie one night if you want something reliable and high performance.

 @Kyle201: I'm with you 100%. Here's what I tend to use as "my ideal setup," which I'm sure will be very different from a lot of people, but this is why:

1. Bar Light - High power, wide (read: elliptical) beam, spill around the front tire but not up in the sky, not a ton of throw down the trail, more a wall of light.
2. Helmet Light - ~50% of the total lumens of the bar light, narrow/focused beam.

Reasoning: Bars waver around a ton, makes no sense to have a really spotty beam on the bars unless you're on a drag strip. In the woods or on techy climbs you just get a spot of ground lit up and whenever you move that spot goes completely dark, which is frustrating on top of seriously messing with your night vision. If you have a more uniform, even spill of light that will reduce the wavering effect on your eyes, let you see around corners better, and dramatically reduce eye fatigue. The major benefit of a bright bar light is also shadows, since the light source is well away from your eyes and will make roots/rocks/drops all look bigger/less washed out.

Helmet lights go where you look, so it makes sense for them to be pretty focused, especially when paired with a wide bar light. As such, you don't need nearly as many lumens as the bar, because when tightly focused the intensity (what your eye perceives as "brightness") is much higher, so you can have a narrow helmet beam with half the power input still have a visible bright spot in the field of view. This allows you to turn your head to fill in parts of the trail where you need it, be that looking around corners or throw down the trail at high speed. Keeping the power down from the bars prevents the trail from getting washed out by a light source next to your eye (no shadows = no depth at night) and allows you to keep the larger, heavier light on the bars instead of your helmet.

Anyways, wordy response, but I wanted to share. Hope this helps some

 @HuckGnarris: Cheers for the response. I knew Brite-R would be a rebranded Chinese light but not aware of how bad the batteries were.

My current setup works pretty well but if I need another light I may go with C and B Seen which are a little more expensive but look a bit more legit.

 @bmck: I agree with @endlessbikegirl. At some point you start to hate the fact that something may be in perfect condition except for something small and silly and due to the low price, makes it a total loss. I have that with electronics in particular. So if I can invest in something a bit more expensive but I can trust that I can get spares and repair for over a decade, I'd much rather have that than spend that same amount of money on several "disposable" sets built under poor worker conditions in a noisy factory far far away. But as with anything it is an investment and I absolutely understand that if I were still in my student years and suddenly decided I needed a set right now because fall is kicking in right now, I'd be happy to buy one of these cheaper sets. We all have our footprint and it is just up to us to decide where to place it. Pretty sure I own more than enough gear where I bought into cheap and dirty than with a sustainable long term plan. I'm no saint either.

I should also add that I got that Lupine set as a present so it wasn't even necessarily my conscious choice. But it made me realize what a cool company they are and they were great when I needed to buy a new battery.

@HuckGnarris : This is pretty much my setup too. I've got diffuser lens on the handlebar mounted light, the helmet light is tighter. I have the batteries attached to the helmet too so I have no issues with cables between camelbak and helmet.

 @fartymarty: It's an epidemic, anything $50 is going to have some sheisty things going on.

C&B Seen is an odd one, as their product is so aggressively priced it seems like it would be in the same category of the Brite-Rs and others, but the website conveys that it was started in someone's garage. Might be OK, but I'd be a bit wary, as they sell light heads with no battery packs, but then somehow state run times in the specs. Also it looks a bit industrial with the mounts and if you get the remote control option there is no way to mount the remote, seems like it is a light system that is not particularly well thought through....but I've never touched one, so I say you get one and report back, haha. Curious what their build quality is like.

 @HuckGnarris: C and B Seen (Vinays recommendation above) sell both the lamp units separately and with a battery / charger lower on the page. They're about £70 with a battery. Assume it is sourced from China but with a bit of UK backup. Not sure on the battery quality as my Lumicycle 6.8Ah cost £120.

As for mounts I am currently using a modded GoPro helmet mount for my lights on my Super 2R. Its great as I leave the mount on the helmet and then bolt the lights on when needed. I would probably do the same with a C and B Seen if I ever bought one.

 @fartymarty: Yeah, not sure about where it is produced. Initially I thought it was made in the UK because of the "about us" thing on their front page where they state they do design and manufacturing. There is a perception that "made in a western country" necessarily has to imply "expensive" but my experience with companies like Tacx is that this doesn't have to be the case. It is just that some western made stuff like Hope is such high level that it immediately becomes much more expensive. I think what C and B seen aims to do is produce something over here on the same level as (decent) stuff made in China. Yes Tacx is more expensive than PRO or BBB, but it isn't insanely expensive and overqualified in a way. I think the same goes for this brand. Though I'm not sure to what extend that "manufacture" goes. What is produced locally and what components are bought abroad?

My experience with them is good though. They have been responsive and everything works. I can't say anything about whether the output is as rated but it is well bright enough for me. I rarely use full power simply because the stuff I ride is so tight and twisty it doesn't make sense to look that far ahead anyway . I think the remote switch (I don't have) is wireless. Which makes sense if you're going to mount the light on your helmet. Unfortunately Lupine doesn't do a remote for their Neo light. Which is a shame as that light makes most sense on a helmet.

Oh yeah, and you can buy empty battery cases in which you put 18650 batteries so I suppose the chances of poor wiring there should be slim. Also great because I'm from The Netherlands and shipping a full battery overseas is much more expensive because of the risks and regulations involved.

 @vinay: When you say "I rarely use full power simply because the stuff I ride is so tight and twisty it doesn't make sense to look that far ahead anyway" that just tells me you need a more optimized beam pattern for your local trails. Something a bit wider and more diffuse would probably be easier on the eyes so you don't get blinded by the bright spot on foliage and such in the foreground whenever you go around a turn.

Lupine makes a remote for the Piko, which is not really any more obtrusive than the Neo, is actually slightly shorter, just wider. Granted it's a good bit more expensive, but that's an option at least. I think they just ran out of space to fit the Bluetooth control module in the Neo.

 @HuckGnarris: Thank you for your thoughts. I think I'm happy with what I've got. I'm running a diffuser lens on my handlebar mounted light which already gives me a nice and wide beam. I'm not saying running full power gets me blinded, it is just that I can see well enough already in the middle setting and even though it is legal riding there in the dark (the area is accessible between 6am and 11pm regardless of the season) it kind of feels like "littering" to be emitting more light than I need. The narrow beam on the helmet allows me to look ahead where I'm going. But beyond two corners you simply can't look any further because the terrain is in the way. Back in the days I ran a set from Sigma with a lead-acid battery in the bottle cage and a 5W halogen light on the handlebar. Now that was limiting. Even the lowest setting on the lights I'm using now complete blow that away. Some buddies made more powerful lights in PVC piping that required a computer fan to cool them and a huge lead-acid battery inside the frame and these were still less powerful than what we have now.

Yeah Lupine does the remote for Piko and onwards but it can't be retrofitted to my older Piko so it is no option for me. But yeah of course anyone after a really compact helmet light (and potentially a helmet mounted battery too) and who also needs the remote is well served with the Piko. I love mine. The C and B seen lights are already much larger than the Piko.

 @vinay: Ha, I love meeting someone who is familiar with the concept of "light pollution." +1 Missed that you were trying to make it work with your old Piko, that obviously won't work. We'll see if someone comes out with something better next year...

 Females led several laps mind you...not to mention they are best at mending the heard. Like lions, the women hunt in these parts, often in packs with each other.

 Herd that is...

 @snwoody: Ain't that the truth! Us lady babs were there also "buzzing along with our staggering number of points of engagement"

 Ya, I never got the "allure" of riding a bike that's noisy. I've always grown up trying to make my bike as quiet as possible.

 I used to think the same especially because I like getting close to wildlife predawn but its good to know where other people are, how fast they are coming and for hiker safety/annoying on mixed trails.

 Dumonde Tech freehub grease, use a light film over the drive ring and pawls and voila a quiet ride. Why anyone would want to quiet that beautiful sound is beyond me, but that's how you can do it.

 @choppertank3e: if there was an on/off switch, that would be great. When I need to alert people, I can use a bear bell.

 Oops. That's been corrected.

 That video is hilarious, so freaking intense, haha.

I like that Sigma actually tries to educate on beam and the difference between lumens and lux on their website. The optic used in the Buster 2000 is good (LEDiL CUTE-3) and I've used it on a few homemade helmet lights in the past. That said, the light head is bulky, particularly with the mounting system, and the user interface is finicky. Still a much better option than $25 Amazon lights, that's for sure.

 It is easy and it's fun, been doing it for 15 years, get a good light, I run a Hope R8+ and Ayups with that setup I am just as fast as I am during the day.

 It is! You just have to have the right attitude and friends.

 Agree with @endlessbikegirl just get a solid light setup and find a few friends who want to go have some fun at night and it all comes together pretty easily!

 @seamus: What do you think of the Hope? Never held one in hand, curious how the user interface is and if they feel heavy/bulky for the output. Thanks!

 @HuckGnarris: The Hope R8+ is a great light, the build quality is top notch the light is maybe a little heavy but I run it on my helmet , the battery for the R8+ is large it fits ok in my shorts pocket the light output and beam pattern make up for any slight weight penalty.

My brother has the R4 same amazing build quality and still plenty bright and it's much smaller and lighter that the R8, it all really depends on the type of riding you do at night, the R8 is bright enough to ride full on DH trails, if you want I can upload some beam shots to my profile

 @seamus: Thanks for the feedback, confirms what I suspected, Hope does have some quality machine, albeit with a sever propensity for tooling marks for aesthetics, to each their own, ha. Based on the images of the optics they make it does look like it would have a pretty nice beam, would need to see it person though to confirm. If you get the chance and want to upload some beam shots compared to something else that would be amazing! I love seeing what else is out there.

Also, you run the R8+ on the helmet? I can't even find a mount or image of one ever mounted on the helmet, the cross-section of the light head is HUGE for helmet mounting! Does it not bother you? You don't clip tree branches constantly with it? Pretty common around here, maybe you don't have as many trees in your area though.

 @HuckGnarris: I have up loaded some pictures to my profile, plenty of trees here and have not snagged it yet.

 @seamus: Nice! Thank you! Beam looks pretty even overall, if anything it creates a lot of glare off the branches sticking down, but maybe just the angle you have it while taking the pics. Looks like those lower elliptical lenses really fill in the foreground nicely and evenly though. Thanks for doing that!