Road Bike Riding at Night

If you are considering cycling at night or doing some long distance riding, then ilumination will of the road in front of you will be critical. This includes both front and rear lights on you and/or your bicycle.

You’ll need rear flashers to warn motorists and front lighting (headlights) to see the debris, potholes and road hazards ahead of you. Nothing is worse than an unexpected ‘cha-chunk’. Now days LED light are really the best option out there. They have relatively low watt output and therefore have long life without giving up the light intensity. There is a big difference between the functionality of these lights and things you need to consider.

Many of the smaller lights use AA Batteries and they only last 24-48 hours at a time. Some manufacturers advertise more, but generally they base this on a flashing white strobe for the run-time, which you cannot use while riding long distances. This obviously won’t work for night cycling. Furthermore, this is not evironmentally friendly and ultimately this can get costly. Who wants to shop anyway and the little suckers are added weight.

Some riders like the high-tech friction lights that work off the tires, but putting a drag on your tires slows you down. These lights are much more powerful and luminescent, but certainly not my first choice. The AA battery lights are decent and there are several brands, Trek makes one which has five LED lights and has a luminescent rating of 60, most of the 3-LED light units are 40 or less on the luminescent scale, neither of these works at speeds of 20-miles-per-hour or more on a moonless night. Now for riding in central twilight or as the sun is going down, they work wonderful and are legal in states that require bicycles to have lights if they ride at night.

There is another brand called Tri-Newt that has a LED light that scores 480 luminescent on the scale and has an ion-lithium battery, which Velcros to the top bar of the bike frame. The ion-lithium battery is re-chargeable, but this also means you need somewhere to re-charge it and you have to tote around the recharging unit. The cost of this lighting system is steep, $300-400, and the company has another similar unit that scores 200 on the luminescent scale for under $200. One cool option with these lights is that you can mount them on your helmet and run a cable to your water-backpack system where the ion-lithium battery is placed. I wish you well in all your cycling adventures.

Looking for LED lights for your bike?  Try our Bike Store.