Riding mountain bikes in the dark is popular this time of year, and companies like Gloworm offer quality mountain bike lights with many different brightnesses. But if you’re new to night riding, you may not be sure how bright your lights need to be.
Everyone is different when it comes to the amount of light they’re comfortable with, so we want to know what you consider the minimum for riding trails at night.
And if you’re shopping for lights, for a limited time Singletracks readers can take 20% off any Gloworm light system with coupon code: SINGLETRACKS19
Gloworm Performance Products was founded by mountain bike and outdoor enthusiasts Bruce Davey and Vaggelis Monogyios. The Kiwi born company was formed in 2010 with the sole aim to develop a series of high quality, high performance LED lighting systems that are affordable for the everyday user. Gloworm has since grown from a small New Zealand business into a global brand with distributors in 10 counties.
5600 too much?
I think the keyword here is “need”. You can safely go out and do some XC and moderate trails with a simple 30 buck headlamp or a 50 buck REI 400 lumen light. If you have the coin to spend $100 plus on lights then go for it and you won’t regret it. But if you don’t, go get a regular headlamp, rig it up and hit the trails. Don’t forget to shut the light off and check out the stars part way through the ride. I think that we can all get distracted between KOMs and PRs when sometimes we just need to STFU, breath deep and appreciate nature.
A few people answered 4000+? I think my car doesnt even have that much?
2000lm total spread between bars and helmet works well for me. I can deal with less but to ride the way I like to, that’s working best for me right now.
It depends who I’m riding with. I can get by with a 300 lumen lamp but if the guy behind is flooding 1600 lumens either side of me then I’m just riding into my own shadow. I like to have 800 lumens on the bar and 100 on a head torch to look at the wildlife and spot my way out of the turns.
Racing at night =more lumens the better 1000 on both head and bar..