those with light, those without

While the following is about my bike light, it's more of a general light story (those who have light and those who don't), so I figured i'd post it here.

Last night was San Jose Bike Party (every 3rd Friday, approx 25 miles, between 1000-4000 people depending on season). I had my homemade P7 helmet light (1.4A low, 2.8A high).

Previous ride I got nothing but nasty looks and comments from other riders because it was too bright despite being pointed nearly straight down. It felt terrible wanting to see better yet cause so much angst.

But last night's route had vastly fewer street lights with long stretches of dark, and most people's leds were the pitifully dim but super blue type that gives an impression of being bright without actually illuminating much. My P7 was like a bright white incan, very nice.
What a night and day difference in attitude!

girl: "Whoa, where did you get that light!?"
"I made it."
"You can make a light?"
"Yup"

guy: attempting macho repair for a group of girls, yelling "Tools! Anyone with tools?" I stop with my full complement of tools to help. As I'm pulling my backpack off, he's in the glow of my beam pulling out a broken spoke. I try to hand him some pliers but he refused, wanting to take all the hero credit. He should have been yelling "Flashlight!" instead of "Tools!" Didn't even say "thanks for the light man." Girls were cooing over him, yet any one of them could have pulled the spoke out by themselves if only they had a light......my light. I rode off totally ignored.

many guys and girls, surprised: "Crap, I thought you were a car trying to squeeze between us and the sidewalk!.....hey, nice light!"

My favorite:
girl: "Excuse me sir, could you stay in front of me so I can see?"

2nd favorite:
"Muttering/swearing" as I swoop into dark corner of midway rest area and light up a group of male youths lighting up, thinking I'm the cops.

It was a super fun night, and the first time doing a full burn to test run times. 2x18650 in parallel ran continously (on low, 1.4A) from 8:30-11:30 before noticeably dimming, then another half hour (limping home after end-of-ride-regroup) of quite useful light with more left if needed....finished at 3.6v off, 3.5v on low, 3.4v on high.

Nice! How many "bike ninjas" were there?

One of these days I should head down there and do one of these rides. That should be fun.

This last one was 1800 riders. The most was last halloween at over 4200. That was my first experience riding this and it was jaw-dropping, now when it's below a thousand it feels like nobody is there.

Their website sucks, but here it is....they typically post the route 24 hours beforehand. sjbikeparty.org

Sounds like a fun time. Good you were prepared. It's amazing others aren't, but I'm not too surprised.

Geoff

Myself and couple of guys have our 'Wednesday Night Ride'.

Last year I had one of those 150 lumen 2AA things that clamp on your handlebars.

It worked well enough to let cars see me but not much else unless you were riding where there were no street lights.

Ordered one of those Magicshine $80 jobs from DX in Jan this year and it has changed the way we ride.

Our typical route takes us about 2 hours now. It used to take 2 1/2 hours because we would have to take it easy through certain sections of road where there was not quite enough ambient light to light up the road, but enough to make our lights all but useless.

Not anymore. I just turn that SSC P7 handlebar light onto high, and we can see EVERYTHING for at least 50m in front of us like there is a couple of car headlights lighting our way.

Subsequently, the other guys now just turn their lights onto flashing mode for safety.

Love being the hero...

Gota love the magicshine.. i bought a second one. Two on the bars works a treat.
Had a guy waving me down from the pavement the other day when i was riding towards the woods for my night ride, had both of them on low. I slowed and stopped by him and he said "A pushbike! jeez those lights are bright, i was sure you were a motorbike"
me - "ye they pretty cool, they're only on low though" :rock:

My own night biking experience has been recently changed when I bought a twofish light holder and put a minimag that had been augmented with a 1 watt niteeyes led on my bike. I get more respect from motor vehicles and I can see a lot better/farther. and the whole getup was around $20

Another plus for $3 Chinese handlebar mounts for whatever you like running. I use an 6P/M60 on rechargeables for a bike light. When you want to reach out and touch something...

Those who are prepared and those who aren't... this reminds me of one of my bosses

He is fully aware of my flashlight-crazyness, and after I showed him some of the better lights, he said: "we are an AUDIO-company!! WTF do you all have with flashlights??!!"
I'm not the only one, you should know

Then, we had a power failure in the pitch dark morning...

Just a few months before, I decided to mount one of my three Mag Chargers in the repair shop, for "just in case"....

Do you think, he knew where that MagCharger was located?? YES, of course he knew... and he was the first to grab it when he had to go into the dark underground cellar we have, and later, when the alarm system went mad, he also grabbed it in the middle of the night to see what happened... I found the MagCharger where he needed it. He didn't put it back in its charging cradle :thumbsdow

But having a flashlight ON him all the time, after these two things happened? No, that's "nonsense" of course! :sigh:

As they were digging in the neighborhood to lay wires underground, these power failures happened more often... and, of course, Murphy dictates this will happen on a morning, when we had to produce some important cables. No light means no sight, and no electricity means no hot soldering irons :green:

We solved this by using multiple flashlights for the light, and we used one gas-operated soldering iron, and I connected two 12V SLA batteries in series to produce the 24V my soldering iron needed

Problem solved! We produced the cables that morning, right in time....


Timmo.

PCC said:

Nice! How many "bike ninjas" were there?

One of these days I should head down there and do one of these rides. That should be fun.

Click to expand...

Your header doesn't give your location...are you nearby enough to "stop by" next 3rd friday of the month?
Typically routes are given only 24 hours in advance.

I'm in Daly City.

Does anyone know what a Bike Ninja is?

Flying Turtle said:

Sounds like a fun time. Good you were prepared. It's amazing others aren't, but I'm not too surprised.

Geoff

Click to expand...

next time ride with infared illuminators and nightvision...they'll begin to wonder how you can scale rough roads and sharp turns while everyone else, including you are in the dark.

The riding sounds fun! it must've been quite a sight with the P7...almost feels like you're taking about a locomotive headlamp:twothumbs

PCC said:

Does anyone know what a Bike Ninja is?

Click to expand...

no, but i have a mental picture of a badly made movie from the '80's

im so jealous. looks like fun.

how fast is the speed. if it's slow i would try to setup differently. something more festive with blinking lights and maybe color filter over your lights. stuff like that.

It is all ranges of speeds, with people of all ages and skill levels and bike types. Some unicycles, some push-bikes, some 8-ft tall triple decker bikes, some tandems, some fixies, kids, families, you name it. At one rest point someone pulled out a long bungee and harnessed to riders going opposite directions to see who gets pulled off first. Lots of decorated bikes and funky lights. Seen a couple bamboo bikes, one totally made of plexiglass with internal lighting. One trailer is fitted with a couch with speakers and neon lights underneath, had their doggie on the couch the whole time. Way fun!

very cool. i think there is something similar in quebec. la tour de la nuit or something like that.

Cool ride! Maybe someday....

PCC said:

... Does anyone know what a Bike Ninja is?

Click to expand...

Dark rider. Stealth. (No lights.)

Check out the website, lots of info & pictures.