Fun Stuff > CHATTER
Bickering about bicycles, now with occasional tips about motorised vehicles
The Seldom Killer:
Akima,
I find it strange that you say you would have higher powered lighting for the city than you would for rural riding. I usually downpower for city and urban riding and save the bigger stuff for night riding out in the country. This is pretty much standard practice for cyclists in the UK and on a personal level I don't experience an increase in visibility issues at night.
My current set up is to have a small Cateye light on top of my handlebars and a Hope Vision 1 slung underneath. The Hope runs on it's lowest power setting unless there's oncoming traffic that I want to dip their headlights or the surface is rough/I'm on a fast descent. I might also bump it up if the weather related visibility is exceptionally poor. As soon as I hit an urban area or a long stretch of road with lighting I switch to the Cateye and usually on flashing mode.
On the rear I usually run a couple of 1/2W Smarts on flashing and a Fibre Flare. If I'm in a group then that gets knocked down to a single Smart on constant unless I'm Charlie-ing for any reason.
Akima:
--- Quote from: The Seldom Killer on 15 Oct 2014, 22:54 ---I find it strange that you say you would have higher powered lighting for the city than you would for rural riding.
--- End quote ---
I didn't. Ideally, I would have powerful lighting all the time, town or country. The reason I'd go with lower-powered lighting on a PBP ride, for example, is that powerful battery lights wouldn't last throughout the night. I know that the "conventional wisdom" is that some glow-worm-like blinkie is adequate for riding in the city, I just don't buy it. I've had to take avoiding action on too many occasions when drivers plainly didn't pick me out of the river of headlights flowing toward them as they squint into the dazzle.
The Seldom Killer:
PBP is a bit of a weird one because for at least the first 60 hours of most people's riding there's the function of a constant stream of bike traffic. It's also very well known and understood by the communities that it passes through. High powered lighting feels uncessecary for most of it although the high speed descent of Roc Trevezel demands the best lighting you can give it. On Super Brevet Scandinavia I had a rechargable light and had a charger in my drop bag. However in August you're looking at 5 hours of proper darkness tops, a couple of which will likely be spent sleeping.
Next years PBP will probably be the Hope Vision 1 and buying AA batteries on the fly. The current riding plan puts me on 2.5 night sections if my training plan pans out. If I make it to the Transcontinental in 2016 then I will most likely aim for a hub dynamo light and a small AA powered back up light and a modded head torch. The hub will also be used to charge devices during the day.
ev4n:
Man, PBP is like the holy grail for me, in some respects.
The Seldom Killer:
Do it. You have 10 months to train up to it which is enough, particularly for someone who has some base fitness in place anyway. Admittedly Canada isn't the best place to start a training programme in October but box set turbo sessions in the basement and a SS ratbike for getting out on the good days will do a lot to get ready to head out as soon as the weather breaks in Spring.
I know it's a bit of a daunting prospect but I reckon just commiting to doing it is the hard starting part. You don't have to commit to doing it until registration time in June and you won't want to regret not doing it for another four years. Your local randonneuring group should be able to give some advice about how it's done from your neck of the woods.
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