MTB Egypt Forums

We discussed doing night rides before but never really went through with any plans for night group rides. Night rides can be a lot of fun and can add something new to the common trails that many of us have already become quiet familiar with. Riding the same trail at night is a different experience. We should definitely plan some night rides soon (after addressing required gear issues, keep reading).

Here are the answers to what I assume will be the first questions about night riding:

Why would we ride at night when we have the daytime to enjoy?

A few reasons:

1- It's something new, fun and adds a bit of challenge to the usual rides.
2- It should sharpen your senses and hone your riding skills.
3- If you're into mountain biking you should always experiment with riding in different conditions and situations. Why do you think SCUBA divers do night dives and have a night diving skills course?
4- Do more riding: most of us get to enjoy riding on weekend morning only due to work. A night ride can solve than and enable us to get more saddle time.

Are we even allowed to enter the wadi after dark?

Yes. All we need to do is to purchase our entry ticket beforehand and inform the guys at the gate that we will be riding at night. We can have someone (ideally who lives closest to the Wadi) purchase tickets for the riding group and reimburse him/her before the ride. Or we can always buy an extra ticket if we're riding the day before.

Who can go on a night ride?

Night rides are regular rides without sunlight, so - generally speaking - there are no special requirements other than adding a suitable bike light to your usual gear. However, to enjoy a night ride, there are a few points to consider:

- You should not be afraid of the dark (obviously)
- You should be familiar with the common/popular rides in the Wadi (the Corporate loop, for example) so that you would already have a good sense of your surroundings in the dark and focus on enjoying the ride than on trying no to tumble over unseen obstacles.
- You should have suitable night riding kit: quality bike lights and light mounts.


Ok, you have me sold on night riding. So what do we do now?

First of all we have to get some night-riding gear together. Quality bike lights are not available in Egypt and even if you can get them from abroad, they are generally very expensive. I will be posting a guide here on a semi-DIY bike light solution that should be near perfect for our purposes.

Once we have a "coalition of the willing" for night rides, its a matter of agreeing on a date and time and going on a familiar ride to experiment with nocturnal MTB fun.

The posts that follow will be a how-to for making your bike light. Please post here if you are interested in night riding and let me know if you have question.


-----
Hani

Without going into unnecessary technical details, there are so many types and brands of bike lights out there of varying qualities, intensities, options, battery specs, etc. As a general rule, "good" bike lights (the type you

When buying a bike light you should consider what is more important to you: do you want to see or be seen? If you are going to ride at night in the city, your concern should be more on being seen, since you'll want to be adequately visible in traffic for safety purposes, but you will probably have enough street lighting to see by. For our purposes, and for trail riding in general, we don't have to worry about traffic but we need to make sure that we will be able to adequately see where we're going.

Bike lights intended to be used for the "to see" purpose are generally more expensive (sometimes even too expensive). You need a light that has enough range, intensity, runtime and durability for the more demanding nature of mountain biking.

With that in mind, your options when it comes to having a proper "trail-worthy" bike light are as follows:

1- If you have the cash and access to get this stuff from abroad (you won't currently find quality bike-specific lights in Egypt), then your options are many. You can choose any of the light systems offered by Lupine, Light & Motion, Blackburn, Princeton, NiteRider, or many others. You'll get a quality ready-to-use system with good durability, weatherproofing, and runtime. Be ready to pay anything between $150-$500+, depending on the model.


The Stella 120, Light and Motion's "entry level" light, retails for $130

2- Make your own full-custom bike light: You can either buy a complete kit online, or get the individual bits and pieces from places like El Nekhely Electronics Mall in downtown Cairo and Radio Shack. Quality ready to assemble kits are not cheap, and you have to be rather knowledgeable with basic electronics and can use things like a soldering iron (which is generally not a big deal, but not everyone have the skills or the patience for that). If you see this as the way to go then Google things like "DIY bike light" or search sites like CandlePowerForums for similar things.

Keep in mind that you will not only have to build a working light, but also a suitable, durable mount and make sure that the system has a proper enclosure that is fairly weatherproof. Could be a nice DIY project but its not for everyone.

3- Make your own "semi-custom" system: I see this to be the most reasonable option that can be done at a reasonable cost, with stuff that is available locally (in Egypt) and will provide a lighting system that is durable and very effective.

This basically involves two steps: a) Choose an adequate, high-quality flashlight 2) Make/buy a suitable bike/helmet mount for your light

In the next post I will tell you what you need to do to have a very reasonable, budget high-quality bike light system.

So you want to make your own budget bike light (the easy way)?

What we are going to do is, very simply, mount a regular (but high quality) flashlight to the handle bar and/or helmet. You can do that with any flashlight. However, for our purposes, we have to do some careful selection considering what is available in the local market (which is not much, but you can find what you're looking for if you know where to look). Things like battery type, runtime, and build quality will make a difference in how effective this DIY bike light.

First of all, a good trail riding light system should have two lights:



1-Handlebar-mounted light: This one provides direct, straight-line illumination of the trail directly ahead of you.

2- Helmet-mounted light: The helmet-mounted light provides eyeline-level visibility that you can point wherever you want or at sections that a bar-mounted light will not immediately illuminate (drop-offs or very steep sections, for instance)


Now that we know what we need in a good light system, lets define some things that must be available in the flashlights we are going to use in place of the off-the-shelf solution:

1- It must be available in Egypt: This is a practical guide for riders in Egypt. I am going to assume that your only option is to buy locally considering the hassle of shipping and customs cost. If you can get other things from abroad or online, go for it (but try to stick to these general guidelines)

2- It must be small and light: Suitable for mounting on a bike's handlebar or your helmet. I can go buy a hand-held industrial-grade luxeon light (the ones with the big reflector) for L.E. 90 from Goumhoreya street. Great light intensity and throw, but good luck mounting that on your bike or helmet!

3- It must have a good runtime: Our average group ride is a little over 1 hour. I predict night rides to be a maximum of 2 hours on the shorter trals. (other rides usually last anywhere between 2-4+ hours, but we're talking about quick night rides here). You'll want something that should give you adequate illumination at full intensity for at least 2 hours.

4- It must run on standard batteries: Not really a must, but preferable since we want a budget solution.

5- It must be durable or fairly weatherproof. We have very dry weather in Egypt, but you'll still want something that is at least shock-proof.


Budget:

This is a guide for what is recommended based on the above 2-light system and requirements, but what you buy is up to you depending on your budget. We intend to have something that is comparable in performance to entry-level to mid range quality bike lights at about half (or less) the cost.

This system should cost about L.E. 500. Which is significantly less than what a single-light, off-the-shelf system would cost.

You can opt for a single-light system using one flashlight, and it will cost less than L.E. 250.


System components:

- 2 LED flashlights
- 1 handlebar mount
- 1 helmet mount
- batteries

What to buy and where to buy it:

My own recommendation for a flashlight for this system is the Inova Bolt 2A LED light. It is a solidly-built light (aluminum body with a rubber grip) that puts out a very decent beam and runs on 2 regular AA batteries. It measures 14 cmx2.5 cm, has a 3-hour (max) runtime and is also available in Egypt. As such, it satisfies the all the above criteria for a light choice for this project.



This light is sold (among others) at the outdoors equipment shop on Tahrir street (just off Midan El Tahrir, on your left hand side as you're heading towards Bab El Louq). I don't remember the name of the shop right now but you can't miss it. Price as purchased in December 2009 is L.E. 225. Make sure you ask for the 2A version, since there are two other models in the Bolt line: a smaller one that uses 2 AAA batteries (too weak for our purposes) and a larger one that uses 2 123A batteries (great light, but more expensive). I tried all three believe that the middle one is best in terms of price/light ratio. Also, the 123A batteries used for the brightest one are pretty expensive (L.E. 20 a piece, which buys you a pack of 5 AAs).

The Bolt comes with batteries. AA batteries are commonly available of course and you should get a couple packs while you're at it.

Next thing to do is making your light mounts! (next post)

... jumping, flying and falling at night ...interesting !!! Im in isA
concerning the DIY flashlight project, thought of using the halogen lamps (used in cars) but the battery can weigh 1-1.5kg... Ill think about it after finishing my finals.

fakahany Wrote:... jumping, flying and falling at night ...interesting !!! Im in isA
concerning the DIY flashlight project, thought of using the halogen lamps (used in cars) but the battery can weigh 1-1.5kg... Ill think about it after finishing my finals.

Be creative. There are many ways and configurations to build a nice DIY bike light.

I haven't had the time to post pictures and a how-to for my mounts yet, but here are a few good links for now:

Handlebar mounts:

. There are a few very cheap mounts available online (assuming you can have them shipped at a reasonable cost to Egypt). Here is a very cheap handlebar mount on DealExtreme

. Here is one that you can probably make using an old inner tube, duct tape and some positioning cleverness.

. Various DIY handlebar light mount guides on Instructables. This one is particularly simple because all you need is an old spare tube and scissors.

Helmet mounts:

. A simple helmet mounting solution using zip ties.
. ...and another similar one, but with rubber bands instead of zip ties.

Other bike light DIY links:

. The Lights DIY forum on MTBR

. Various links to DIY bike light projects

So we went for a night ride on January 30th 2010, and it was great!

We rode the shortest loop on the south side

Some pictures are here http://mtbegypt.com/index.php/rides/night_riding/