We had guests this weekend, so I didn’t ride much. I did go mountain biking at Brown County State Park with Dave Saturday morning. We only rode about 9 miles, but it felt great to get out on the trails. I want to go back soon for more! These trails have amazing flow. This ride, while brief, was enough fun to make me think I should try to convince certain co-conspirators to come up and hit some trails, rather than gravel, sometime.

We also tossed around some ideas for our traditional Black Friday mountain bike ride. This should involve some trails we’ve never ridden. I’m looking forward to it!

Today, we went for a hike with our friends, also at Brown County, which ended in our car not starting, and having to get a tow truck and my mom to come pick us up. Here’s hoping it won’t cost too much to fix the car …

Hi Michael,

We have recently received an increase in warranty claims related to the battery packs included with Magicshine lightsets. We have determined that the Magicshine battery packs do not meet GeoManGear’s high expectations regarding product performance and quality. We are working with the manufacturer to quickly resolve these issues and will begin providing replacement battery packs after we have obtained a high-quality battery pack for our customers.

We want nothing less than the best for our customers and we will make sure you have that. We hope to have the replacements in the next few weeks.

If you notice the lifespan of your battery decreasing, please discontinue use, and dispose of the battery.

We will take good care of you and these issues!

Thanks!
Geoman

I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. I have read good things about them; they seem like a good company. I’ll continue to post updates here.

The Light

As I have alluded to previously, I got a new light for riding. Actually, my wife ordered it for me after realizing that I’ve been gimping along with subpar lights. I’m a lucky guy, having a great wife AND a very bright light!

This new light blows everything I’ve ever tried out of the water. The new light is a Magicshine 900, rated at an incredible 900 lumens!

Now, something weird is going on. Last night, I went to the site where Sarah ordered the light, and I saw this:

GeoManGear has temporarily discontinued sales of Magicshine lightsets due to our concerns regarding the quality of Magicshine’s lithium-ion battery packs. We are working with the manufacturer to quickly resolve these issues and will begin selling Magicshine products again after we have obtained a high-quality battery pack for our customers. If you wish to be notified when we have new Magicshine or comparable lightsets available, please click here to place your name on our waiting list.

I have sent them an e-mail asking for more information. And I really hope that my batteries are not affected, or that there is a solution, because this light is amazing, and promises to expand my night riding capabilities. Interestingly enough, I have read quite a few reviews of this light, and most of them have been very positive, not mentioning any battery problem. So I wonder what’s going on.

In my living room, I did a couple of unscientific tests comparing this light to the two other brightest lights I have, a Planet Bike Blaze 2W, and a Cygolite Hi-Flux 100. On low, the Magicshine is about equal in brightness to the other two lights. On medium, it ‘s about twice as bright. On high, it’s so bright that I had to check to see if the other lights were even on.

The beam pattern is also quite useful on this light. It has a bright spot in the center, but it’s not as tight as the Blaze (a good thing — I think the beam on the Blaze is too tight). The Magicshine also projects light out to the sides, and above and below the main beam. In practice, I have found that I can focus the brightest part of the beam about a block away, and have the road directly in front of me illuminated quite well also. It’s incredible. The beam pattern will be immensely useful for mountain biking, though I haven’t tried that yet.

So, you can see why I hope there will be a good solution to whatever battery problem there may be.

Test Rides

The day the light came, I did a brief test ride through a couple of neighborhoods and parks. I was amazed at how well I could see. I was able to ride a lot faster than I could with my old lights. Plus, it was a beautiful, clear, starry night and I loved riding along under the stars.

Last night, I did a longer test of about 16 miles, west of town. It was dark before I even left the house. I found traffic getting out of town a bit sketchy, but once out in the country the roads were incredibly quiet and beautiful. I saw a cat, a skunk, and some cows … and I think an owl overhead, though it was out of the corner of my eye. It was a hilly route, and I even hit about 34 mph — in the dark — without ever feeling out of control. Wow. There were some choice moments rolling under the stars, with a crescent moon and Jupiter also visible.

I was a little nervous about this ride with the hills in the dark in a sort of wild area, thinking maybe I should have done something shorter, but I loved being out there; it was over too soon. Traffic was much less of a problem on the way back, so maybe it would help to start my night rides a little later, after traffic has died down more.

Right now, I cognitive dissonance is getting to me. My experiences with this light have been amazing so far, but obviously I am concerned about the battery packs. I’ll post updates as I figure out what’s going on.

I’m going back to school in January! After high school, I spent 2+ years at Northwestern University, and then dropped out (it’s a long story). I never finished the Computer Science degree I was pursuing, and I have always intended to go back to school. Well, I am finally going to do it! I got into the General Studies program at Indiana University, right here in town. I’m not sure yet what classes I’ll be taking, but I am looking forward to it. It will be strange to be a student again. I hope I am able to adapt reasonably well.

A couple of months ago, some ongoing contract work was cut way back. My budget has been severely scaled back ever since. And with school coming up, things are going to get tighter.

Cycling

I’m gearing up for winter. It’s difficult with a small budget, but fortunately I already have most of the things I need. However, this winter will be different from last year. My commute is longer, and I will be riding to/from/all around campus, as well. I have decided to use the Trucker as my main winter bike.

Studded tires

I had a pair of studded tires already, but they’re for 26″ wheels, since I used an old mountain bike as my winter commuter previously. So, I knew I would need 700c studded tires. I lucked out and Doug (MnBicycleCommuter) had recently gotten a new set of studded tires, but still had the old ones around, with plenty of life left in them. He offered them to me at a good price. I couldn’t resist. Here is his post about shipping the tires on his Xtracycle. The tires arrived today (already!) and I’m looking forward to trying them out. I’ll need to install them on the Trucker soon to make sure there’s enough clearance under my fenders.

This leads me to wheels. I really wish I had an extra wheelset for the Trucker. This would allow me to keep both my slicks and studded tires mounted on a wheelset, and just swap out the wheels. I am not sure yet if this is going to be in the budget.

Lights

My lighting situation has been less than ideal for a few years. I have a few lights which have been adequate when combined, but again, with a longer commute, I’ll be spending more time riding in the dark. I knew I would need something better. Fortunately, my beautiful wife ordered me a light. It’s not here yet, but I am looking forward to testing it out. It’s going to blow my existing lights out of the water.

This light will also be useful for night rides on the road, mountain bike rides, etc. I can’t wait!

I’m also investing in some more reflective gear. In addition to a longer commute, I’m hoping to get more riding in this winter than ever before. That will mean a lot of riding at night, and I need to stay visible.

I’m not sure yet what else it will hold, but already I can see that 2011 is going to be a very interesting year!

Nonetheless, I’m determined to keep riding as much as possible this winter, and that means riding in the dark. Last night I set out for a ride as the sun was getting low in the sky, and darkness fell over the course of my ride. I had no issues at all on this ride, and it was a wonderful experience.

I rode a very familiar route, which helped, since I had a pretty good idea where the pavement was rough, and where to be especially aware of traffic, etc.

With temps in the 40s, there was a chill in the air, and a general sense of quiet stillness was the theme of the ride. With almost no traffic, I had the roads all to myself. The crisp air held the fragrance of dead leaves, punctuated occasionally by the smell of a fireplace or wood stove.

I was treated to a beautiful sunset …

… or, more accurately, several sunsets.

A few times, I thought the sun had finally dipped below the horizon, only to climb up on a ridge and see it setting once again.

This creepy barn was also quite a sight.

Frankly, I’m surprised that the photos so far turned out as well as they did. It was getting quite dark. Things get a little more abstract from here.

All told, I rode 21 miles, half or so in the dark. And I had a wonderful time.

However, for me, there is something of a night riding season. Night riding is a weird thing because when given a choice, I’ll nearly always prefer to ride when it’s light outside. However, nearly every night ride I do is memorable, and I always have fun. It just takes a little more motivation to get out at night, I guess.

Dave and I did an absolutely incredible night ride on Thursday.  We parked by the Crooked Creek boat ramp and rode out along the lake, and did part of the Nebo Ridge trail. Just like we did during this ride. However, this time it was different. We got to watch the sun set over the lake from some doubletrack, as we rode along.

These pictures are a little misleading. By now it was getting fairly dark, the camera just corrected and tried to make it look like daytime. I should have adjusted them a little more.

By the time we reached some gravel roads, it was really getting dark. The sun setting over a field of goldenrod was breathtaking. Again I had trouble getting the shots to reflect what we were seeing.

Soon we reached a poorly-maintained fire road that took us up to the Nebo Ridge trail itself. Here we switched our lights on. Things were tricky on this somewhat overgrown trail that had a fair amount of debris, and a big climb.

As we crested the hill, we could see the huge orange harvest moon rising through the trees. We stopped when we reached the trail to adjust our lights and get ready for the next section. Here’s my bike, and Dave getting his stuff ready.

We rolled out on the trail. The riding was tough, with lots of ups and downs and a rugged trail surface. But it was also a lot of fun. As we rode along we saw thousands of sparkly spider eyes looking back at us from the ground, and rode through countless spider webs. It’s amazing how many spiders are out there! Here are a couple of pages about spider eyes at night: ONE | TWO.

Here’s an idea of what the view looked like from my bike.

At one point, Dave shifted and his chain got caught between his cassette and spokes. Whoops! He had a tune-up recently, so it really shouldn’t do that … while Dave was fixing his bike …

… I was looking around at the wildlife. I saw more spider eyes (which I did not get photos of), and a huge millipede. It’s hard to tell from the photos, but his guy must have been at least five inches long.

As I was photographing him, he did something odd … he rolled his head under his body and held it there for a few seconds. Wikipedia says that millipedes can roll up in a ball, so maybe he was considering doing that. I’m really not sure.

During most of our time on the trail, we couldn’t see the moon very much … there was just too much tree cover.

We didn’t stay on the trail too long. We would have enjoyed going further, but we both had to work the next day, so we only rode to the pond and back on the trail. Maybe a 3-4 mile round trip. And then headed back the way we came. Seeing the full moon over Salt Creek and Lake Monroe was amazing!

I just noticed that you can also see Jupiter, the bright dot to the right of the moon, in this next shot.

This was one of the better night rides we’ve done, and it was only the first one of the night-riding season! I can’t wait to do more. Dave was super cool about waiting while I took photos, which was appreciated. I normally don’t even try to take photos on our night rides because night photography is more time-consuming, and it’s quite hit-or-miss.

I spent a little more time than usual taking photos; here are a few.

As soon as I got outside, I noticed it was drizzling. I hadn’t counted on rain, but I was dressed warmly enough that I wasn’t too worried.

I rolled away from town, heading for some back roads. I got on Mount Gilead Road and the rain picked up slightly. It wasn’t raining hard, but the roads were wet enough to be rather slick. I rode my brakes down a big hill, and at one point I felt my rear tire slipping a bit. This is the second time this has happened; I think it’s time to get a new tire.

I reached the bottom of the hill and turned onto another road. I stopped by a creek to turn on my headlamp and take a few photos. I wasn’t sure if they’d turn out, as my point & shoot camera does not do too well in low light, but the gamble paid off. Actually, if anything, the photos look too bright.

I cruised for a few flat miles, seeing a few deer along the way. Eventually, I had to ride on State Road 46. By this time, it was getting quite dark, and the rain had picked up. I was glad I had dressed warmly enough, and glad I wore my wind and rain-resistant cycling vest. I had many lights blinking but I was still nervous about this brief section of highway. It was over in a few minutes, with no problems.

I turned onto Friendship Road for a brief section of gravel, and stopped on a bridge over a creek to snap a few more photos. I’ve taken photos here several times before, but of course it looks different when it’s raining and nearly completely dark. My glasses kept getting covered with rain drops, I would wipe them off frequently, but it didn’t seem to help much.

After a brief section of gravel, I turned onto Lampkins Ridge road for a long climb. By this point it was completely dark, and it started raining even harder. The climb seemed very long in the dark. It was hard to tell I was, or how much longer I had to climb. It didn’t help that a dog chased me; I always hate being chased uphill, and since it was dark, I couldn’t tell if the dog had stopped chasing or not.

I made my way back toward town, soon reaching Smith Road. From this point it was only a couple of easy miles home.

This was a surprisingly fun ride, given that it was cold, windy, raining, and dark. I loved it!

When we left off in Part I, we had just prepared for the second ride of the day, this one at night. It was completely dark when we started, but we brought plenty of lights. Of course, that means I don’t have any photos of this ride. However, here is a map.

View 2009-11-07 HNF MTB Camping Trip 2 18-20-19 in a larger map

As we left our campsite, we heard owls hooting some more. We pedaled down the gravel road briefly, and all was quiet except the crunch of the gravel beneath our tires and the whooshing sound of the wind blowing through the pines. We turned onto trail 18, but not the same portion we rode earlier in the day. This section, we had ridden a few times in the past.

On the trail, the surface was gravel, briefly, before changing to dirt. As before, everything was covered in several inches of leaves. Once the gravel ended, the trail conditions varied, with some smooth, dry sections, and some muddy ones.

This trail normally features a blistering descent, but between the mud and the leaves and the fact that it was dark outside, it was slow going, and required a lot more effort than usual just to keep moving — even when going downhill. It was still fun, and we really appreciated the few places we were able to coast. Did I mention it was dark? The moon hadn’t come out yet, unlike some night rides/hikes of the past couple of weeks.

After we reached the bottom of the long hill, we rode through creek bottoms for a while, where trail conditions were better than we expected. We had to push our bikes up part of the long, steep, eroded climb up to the intersection with trail 20.

Normally, the descent on trail 18 is the highlight of this ride. But this time around, trail 20 was the star of the show; it was in better shape, and its twists and turns were a lot of fun in the dark. I led for a while, and was doing well until I missed a turn and suddenly, the trail just ended. I had to slam on my brakes in order to avoid riding into some trees. We laughed it off and backtracked to the proper trail.

This ride was very different from our earlier one. We were more focused on riding, and there was less conversation. This also allowed us to really take in the sounds of the forest: once again, the pines … more owls … a few unidentified noises. But mostly just leaves rustling in the wind and being trampled by our tires. The moon never really did come out while we were riding, but the stars were fantastic, and a planet (venus, I think) looked quite bright. Not bright enough to light our way, but it was a very bright dot in the night sky.

Trail 20 spit us out on another gravel road. We did some climbing on the road and then turned onto trail 19. The last five miles back to our campsite were mostly uphill, alternating gradual climbs with steep ones. This was the hardest part of the ride. We were tired and hungry, and this was our second ride of the day. The mud and leaves made climbing very difficult. We made it, eventually, but it was rather grueling.

We returned to our campsite. Dave had a solid fire going in about 10 minutes, without even striking a match. We made dinner — Dave made steaks, and I cooked beans and pasta. All while drinking some very tasty beer. We weren’t exactly roughing it …

Eventually, the moon rose. But we didn’t see it for very long — we were too tired to stay up.

Dave went to his tent first. I stayed by the fire to watch the stars for a few minutes. But not long. I was worn out, and we had a hike planned for the next day.

To be continued …

We set out down a smooth-packed gravel road; it was raining, and our lights reflected off the rain drops and almost made it look like snow was falling. Within a couple of minutes, we looked ahead down the road and saw two beady eyes glowing back at us. We couldn’t tell until we got within about 10 feet that it was a possum crossing the road. We nearly hit it, but rode around and it ran off.

Soon, we reached the end of the road, and the beginning of a trail. The leaf cover was substantial, and we kept thinking that we were seeing crumpled up pieces of aluminum foil on the ground. Upon closer inspection, we realized that every downturned yellow leaf had water beaded up on the back of it, and somehow the way our lights reflect off them gave off a silvery sparkle.

We rode a long, gradual downhill on the trail, our lights providing enough light to see the trail a bit in front of us, but not much more more. We had to navigate around, over, or through various mud holes, sticks, branches, even whole trees at times. I found it easiest to keep my speed up, it helped me roll over the sticks and through the mud.

We stopped to adjust our lights and when we did, we heard coyotes yipping and yelping and howling, in the not-too-distant distance. We fell silent and listened to them for several minutes.

The trail got rougher and more rutted, but the leaves made it impossible to tell where the muddiest spots and other obstacles were. The harder it got, the more speed I picked up. It seems counterintuitive, but going fast was just easier than going slow.

We turned onto another trail, this one in much worse shape than the first. The trail had been heavily damaged by horse traffic. In places, our pedaling got us nowhere — our tires just spun in the thick mud. I got off my bike to walk and my whole foot sank into the mud. It was difficult to keep moving. At some point the rain stopped and the cloud cover thinned slightly, enough that we could see the moon glowing through the clouds.

But the trail turned steeply downward and this made it easier to ride. But we were still slipping around a lot. Once again, picking up speed helped; at times, I was practically floating across the top of the mud.

Suddenly, we reached the bottom of the hill and the trail spit us out onto a dam. One odd thing about riding in the dark is that you have no frame of reference for where you are. You can’t see more than about 10-15 feet ahead of you, and you have no peripheral vision. So when we reached the lake it felt very abrupt.

We stopped and turned our lights off. The lake looked breathtakingly beautiful. The sky was still cloudy, but the moonlight dispersed through the clouds, and the sky looked surprisingly bright. We could see the silhouettes of hills looming over the lake, the fast-moving clouds, and the calm water reflected the scene. We lingered for a while.

We switched our lights back on and rode on some gravel roads through the forest. We could see a bit better briefly, as the tree cover let up. But soon, the trees covered the road and we had tunnel vision once again. During this stretch, we saw the first car of our ride. We could hear a creek gushing alongside the road. We climbed for what seemed like a very long time. We were riding up a familiar hill, but once again, with no point of reference, we couldn’t tell when we were nearing the top.

Eventually, we did reach the top, and we turned onto another road. After a few rolling hills, we were done. We did see another car along the way, increasing the total number of cars spotted to 2.

This ride was fantastic in so many ways. It was a great combination of fun, insanity, challenges, and scenic beauty. Night rides are always a bit crazy, but this one was especially so, with the rain and mud. I think I was muddier after this ride than I have ever been.