Night riding

I’ve tried the big 10 inch light on the front and a light bar. The light bar was for sure better. I think the biggest advice I can give is get a good helmet light to pair with it. You don’t realize how much you miss being able to look ahead until your out there in the black

Paging Steve Hengeveld

Over 35 years of night riding …

This is as good as it gets for a bolt on solution for the modern Racer:

Riding/racing at night is some of the most fun you can have on a bike! Here's a local GP night race at Glen Helen from this past weekend

Here's some info and tips on how to power lights on a dirt bike. A KX450 is tough since it doesn't make much power to run big lights, but external battery packs are a good option and explained here too.

https://dirtbiketest.com/fresh-dirt/how-to-power-lights-on-a-dirt-bike-tech/

👍

Two on the helmet and one on the bike.

Led-x cobra 6500.

Here in scandinavia all enduro riders ride in the dark from october to march. I would never put a light on my bike without having anything on my helmet since the light on the bike will bounce up and down with the bike. The lights on the helmet will be completley still when you ride and you also get the light to follow where you turn your head.

So the common setup in here in Sweden/Norway and Findland is that you run your primary light on the helmet and a extra on the bike. And if you only use one light you put that on your helmet.

https://www.rigidindustries.com/adapt-xe-extreme-enduro-complete-ready-to-ride-led-moto-kit-black-300416.html 

This thing is insane. Add an OxBow helmet light and it will be like day time.

Found these two on my phone from when i bought the lamps. Both of them produce 6500 lumen each and have 5 different light modes if you want to save battery.

It’s hard to make them justice taking a picture with a phone in the dark but this is the two on my helmet without the bike light.

Do You know of a similar setup available in the US?  I looked at those and they look really nice. They have a newer model now. I did not see any options for a US style charger setup or if they ship to the US. It said they ship all around Europe.   I would love to get one of these. 

I used to enjoy building my own lights for MTB's . I would buy 2 flashlights for the lens and reflector . And replace the bulb with some halogen bulb that I found at an automotive store that were brighter and could take  more power than the stock flashlight . I used RC car batteries and the connectors . I had some really bright lights for about $40 back then. Most of that was the bulbs .  Not including the battery since I already had those sitting around.  I made mounting brackets from repurposing other stuff.  I was able to ride my MTB very close to the same average speed  in the dark as I did during the daytime, on the trails I rode often . Riding at night with good lights can be so much fun!  It feels faster even if You go the same speed or a little slower.  I really should get a 3d Printer so I could step up the quality and make myself some modern versions.   

I don’t know. No offence but the american stuff has always been to pricey, heavy and not as good as the stuff we use here. But the best lights here produce 6500-7000 lumen per lamp so you could look for something in that ballpark and it should be good.

The US setups seems more baja oriented with the lights on the bike and nothing on the helmet and i don’t understand why. 

Led-X is one Swedish company and then we have Nizled that is another swedish company that makes LED lights for the enduro riders.

The Nizled lights are smaller and not at the same lumen as led-x so the Nizled guys often run 3 lamps on the helmet and two on the bike.

I would drop Led-X an email and see of they can help you. info@ledx.se They have always been helpfull when i had some questions. 

Regarding the charger you could buy a travel adapter that goes from US to european standard maybe? Or just buy a american charger that support that type of lithium battery. 

I use a universal charger for my batterys that provides balanced charging and i can set it up for different types of batterys so you could buy a charger like that in the us and use.

Here is a old picture from 2009. Back then we used 2x 35w HID lights on the helmet and 1x 35w HID on the bike that was mounted in a large aluminium reflector with a plastic lense so it was really light even if it was big.

I tried the old Trail Tech 8” 35w HID they had around that time but that was not something i would use for enduro. The light was not as good as our own stuff and it was to heavy.

Thanks I'll email them.   I looked just quickly and it seems like there really is not anything like those that are in the US market.  I agree that lights on a helmet are much more effective.  The stuff I found in the US market was half the lumens. I'll email them and look around some more. Thanks for the reply. 

No worries. I did a quick search for the known brands used here and added usa behind it on google but it seems like they were only sold here in scandinavia.

Led-X 

Nizled:

https://www.brl.se/sv/artiklar/nizled-hjalmkit-med-3-lampor.html?gad_so…

And M tiger sports:

https://mtigersports.se/butik/pannlampor/superion-6200-lumen/

I guess you’ll have to use google translate on those ones because it’s in swedish, but those 3 ee what i would recomend using or taking contact with. If you need any help you can drop me a PM.

Rode 14 miles home in the dark without a headlight or clothing for sufficient warmth once

Thanks I appreciate it.   Night riding in MA is not legal on a lot of the public land that is legal to ride on. As far as totally dark.  They may have removed it from the rules, but at one point it was in the MA OHV rules/laws , that You could not ride between dusk and sunrise unless You were on private property. Maybe that created a smaller market at least in my area.  I rode MTB's mostly at night  back when I was doing it often. But we had some fun rides at night on our mx bikes too. These days I'll most likely use lights to ride my private riding area.

 First time we studded up our tires we went out in the dark. It was so much fun we made an oval on a small pond and did laps until there was so much ice dust in the air that it looked like it was snowing. Adding snow into night riding adds another level of visibility. I noticed snow in your photos. Do You do anything special to help cut through the snow? Or do you just not ride while it is snowing? The times I've gone out in the snow with bright lights on my SXS, I found that running the regular not as bright lights helped me see better. with the powerful light bar on it lit up all the snowflakes and was harder to see. I was thinking of trying amber colored lights.

Yeah, the night riding is really special.

I live in the middle of Sweden so we have frozen ground from november to early april and snow from december to middle of april. But if the winter comes early we can get snow as early as late october.

A normal winter we get around 1 meter of snow depth but in 2018 we got 2 meters that winter so it was impossible to ride.

We ride on frozen lakes to, at sled tracks and some Mx tracks get plowed. And ofc our regular enduro tracks that i guess you call single tracks. When it comes to the enduro we just ride in the snow, each time it has snowed we have to go out and ride so we keep the trails rideable but we get deep ruts in the snow.

We use regular studded tyres, make a step seat on the bike and if you have a two stroke you have to isolate the carb because if you get snow around it the bike runs bad.

Some years the swedish enduro championship have one or two races during the winter and a couple of years around 2006-2008 the enduro world championship had a winter race two hours from where i live that i raced in 07 and 08.

When we ride in the deep snow ruts we prepare the boots with plastic under the soles so they can glide on the snow like skiis.

when it comes to lights and lenses we try to use lights with 4300 or 5000k that are close to day light. If you go up to 6000k and abowe you get a unplesant blue color in the light.

On the night rides i use clear lenses but on day time if it’s clear sky and sunshine i prefere to use a red or yellow lens. Same when i ride my snowmobile.

Here are two pictures from the first round of the swedish enduro championship in 2010. If you look under the boots you can see the yellow plastic. And how the tracks look that we ride on during the winter. And each region have local winter enduro series also, so it’s just not the championship that can be held on snow.

The last picture on the Suzuki is from 2005 in december on my local mx track that we used to plow then. But riding enduro on the winter give you better training than riding on a frozen MX track so i try to stay in the woods during the winter.

Wow, looks fun.  When I was in my teens , we built a simple sled up from 2 skis, a seat and angle iron for brakes and to steer by applying one of the brakes.  We towed it with an XR350 and it was so much fun. During a blizzard that we got close to 4' of snow , so a little over a meter in 1 day.  We rode around the streets . The streets had a packed layer of snow that was perfect for the bike and sled combo. Just enough traction for the bike. We had so much fun.  We got pulled over by the police 3 times that day. And they just told us to get off the main roads. It was a strange feeling to be sitting pretty much on the ground. The sled was about 3 inches or so off the ground, and to look behind me and see a police car with the lights flashing. We made it about 300 feet out of my driveway before getting pulled over. But I was living right in the center of town at the time. We went all over the town. Back then the town only had 2 police cars on duty at a time. So we knew after we got pulled over , were not to go. We got pulled over twice on our way home since we had to pass the police station. 

  The past couple years we have not gotten much snow. I moved closer to the coast so that caused some of the lack of snow. But overall the past few years have been mostly rain. I plowed maybe 4 or 5 times over the past 3 seasons. Before that it was common to have to plow sometimes 3 times a week in February. I'm hoping for a snowy winter this year.

Cool story. It’s no denying that the weather is changing around the world right now. The winters are not what the used to be here neither.

As a side note. Here is a Husqvarna 258A that were the swedish army bikes from around 1980 to about 2010 i think. Automatic transmission 28HP and spring mounted skiis for the winter.

They never used studded tyres on those so they mounted skiis to help with the balance. A complete death trap when it’s time to brake and you don’t have any studs.

Yah when we were towing the sled we did not have that bikes tires studded so we would use the sled to slow the bike down. The 2 riders had to work together , the sled could control the direction of the bike in some of the conditions.  On the higher speed areas there were only 2 of us willing to go fast. we got going around 60mph on the hard packed snow . I was the only person that rode the sled that fast and one of my buddies was the only person willing to ride pulling it that fast since the sled had a lot of control over the bike. We had to plan out  our runs going up and down the hill . He would ask for help turning in some of the corners so I would steer more to the inside . Some awesome memories , If I ever have kids I'm going to give them a gopro to film everything and keep for themselves so years later they can show people , instead of just telling.

 No studs on snow can be wild. Hitting puddles that were hidden under the snow was a scary part of riding without studs or screws. That bike looks wild. Would be fun to try , but I think I would want studs in the situations that bike would be getting into. D0 You know why they did not stud or put screws in their tires? 

We used to use either the special made ice screws or cheap sheet metal screws. Thats what I did the first time. I spent about $10. But rode my buddies bike that was the same bike, but he had the real ice screws that had a big sharp head on them. So much better and worth the extra $. At the time my other buddy and I did not have time to go to the local shop for the real screws. We went to a hardware store after work when our buddy told us he got some screws.   

I've done a handful of 24hr & 6hr races in the dark, and tons of backcountry sledding after dark. Your helmet light is the most important imo, the machine mounted light is always bouncing around and rarely pointed where you're looking whereas a helmet light is always illuminating where you're looking. If just trail riding with buddy's I am normally happy with just my helmet light. The Baja Designs squadron mentioned above is a great light paired with a helmet light is killer setup.  

The main thing I’m getting out of this is Tumic is a hardcore dude that rides in conditions I wouldn’t even drive in. Core as fuck. 

Night riding is fun. Just be prepared to eat a few spiders if you’re riding in the woods 😂. Obviously, get good headlight. I have the Acerbis VSL and it’s plenty bright. But, also, a helmet light is a must. I’m happy with the Oxbow, but find a way to mount it on the mouth piece or under the visor somewhere, otherwise, light will deflect. 

Nothing to add from a technical standpoint.....  but, man...I love riding at night.      Little different than moto/desert....just trail riding in the local mountains on ADV bikes.     Heaven!

GoPro screen shot.

I have that Oxbow LED light too.... nice little addition when you want to turn light where you're looking.

I think it came down to saving money and being more wrench friendly mounting the skiis instead of having hundreds of tyres to change and that also would wear down fast if you rode them on bare roads without any snow. 

Before the Husqvarna 258 the swedish army used JAWA bikes and they were also fitted with skiis. Now they use KTM LC4’s but i don’t know if they use studded tyres or not on them.

Here is a clip of a guy running a 258 in winter conditions. 

 

Thank’s man, i always get a crack out of seeing some guys post ”it’s clear that you don’t even race” when i say something they don’t agree with..

The coldest temperature we are allowed to race in here on the winter is -17 celsius / 1.4 Farenheight.

Since i were 4 years old i have always rode in the winter, my dad made studded tyres for my pw50 so i could drive on a frozen lake down by the house.

When i was 13 and rode KX80/85’s we had a guy in town make a special flywheel cover for those bike where we could fit a stator and flywheel magnet inside to get 90W out of it for lights. Simular to the Baja designs, E-line, HM Honda and TM enduro bikes lightning coils. 

So from that age i have done riding in the dark long before there were battery packs that could support the lights like there are now.

Here’s how it looks with those types of electrical systems mounted: