Snowy Night Ride Felt Like It Was Going To Kill Me

quickdirt

Has anyone else had any epic snowy night rides where you got yourself in over your head and thought you may never make it back home?

I went on a night ride in the snow this week at my local trail at Alum Creek State Park near Columbus, Ohio. It usually takes me about 30 minutes to ride the 6 mile loop during the summer. This trip took over 2 hours to tackle just 4 miles of the trail. It would have probably been faster to just carry my bike on my back. One of the guys had his battery run out of juice and couldn't see a thing. I couldn't keep my bike upright. I fell behind the group, so I spent most of the "ride" alone in the woods dreaming about the end of the trail.

I did get some great photos though. Check 'em out:

http://quickdirt.com/2014/02/14/dark-sn ... ath-march/

Any advice on getting better riding photos at night? What lights do you like for night riding?

kajjal

Riding in the frozen snow is great on a mountain bike. The biggest tips to do it at night are have too many lights and spare batteries plus go out in the day to check out the trails and conditions. Getting lost or stuck out over night in the frozen wilds is very dangerous.

jacknorell

1 - You need better lights, or at least a few extra battery packs.

2 - You REQUIRE better riding buddies. Leaving you falling behind on a winter night ride is simpy dangerous.

davidponting

I think it was very thrilling, dangerous, but you dared....thats great!!!!!
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cooldad

jacknorell wrote:

1 - You need better lights, or at least a few extra battery packs.

2 - You REQUIRE better riding buddies. Leaving you falling behind on a winter night ride is simpy dangerous.

This.

Northwind

1) The title sounds like a Hold Steady lyric.
2) There is no 2

paulbox

cooldad wrote:

jacknorell wrote:

1 - You need better lights, or at least a few extra battery packs.

2 - You REQUIRE better riding buddies. Leaving you falling behind on a winter night ride is simpy dangerous.

This.

Definitely, you don't want to be riding with people like that. I assume that they are normally roadies...

The Rookie

Leave no man in the field....

quickdirt

They are good guys. They waited for me and I'm sure they would have turned around for me if I had been gone too long. There were about 10 to 12 of us. Someone would have remembered me.

cooldad

Yeah right. I spent an hour floating 5 miles out at sea, in an area perfect for doing your shark speciality, in the middle of a thunderstorm, because my dive 'buddy' was a total knob.
They only noticed halfway back to the beach.

Or maybe they just hated me.

Either way, I'm a bit OCD about it now. So what The Rookie said.

97th choice

Our rule is wait at every fireroad or gap, that way you know roughly where to look.

cooldad

This ^^^

johnmcl7

I use a Sony RX100 for night time shots, it can't match a DSLR but its 1in sensor and F1.8 lens at 28mm are not bad at all in low light and it's a very small camera that easily fits in a pocket.

For lights I use Ultrafire WF-502B XML/XML2 based torches which are powered by 18650 batteries. I've been very pleased with them as they're only around a tenner each and the 18650 battery is standard so I can take a few of them with me with plenty of batteries and I find they're bright enough for night time riding. Currently I have two on the handlebars (one lit so I've got another ready to go if one fails), one on the helmet and one in my pocket. They're quite easy to move around the bike or over to someone else if their light fails unexpectedly which has happened a few times - it's good to be able to lend one out as they're essential. I didn't think they could be any good for the price but so far I haven't had any of them fail on me (bar a ridiculous tri-XML torch which was pointless anyway) even though they're mostly used in the cold and wet.

There's a huge lights thread with a lot of helpful posts which is worth having a look at:

viewtopic.php?f=20005&t=12807034&start=2620

As for epic snowy rides, I had a ride in the snow last year which was probably the toughest I've had. The previous year the snow had come down and we'd had a fantastic ride up the hills through the untouched snow with the moon bright enough to light everything up so the lights were barely needed. It was this ride that really made me start enjoying the MTB rides so when it was cold and snowy again late last year we headed up the same hill. Feeling a bit ambitious when the group were choosing between the two loops, I suggested we do both which was a bad mistake.

This time although the air was cold and the snow was coming down, the ground wasn't really frozen at all so instead of the bikes flying along instead they were much harder work on the snowy and muddy surface. Worse yet as the ground was still quite damp the bike was throwing a lot of dirt onto the bike which quickly started to freeze which clogged up the bike components so nothing was really working including the pedals which I couldn't get traction on although not as bad as the SPD riders whose clip mechanisms froze. Eventually when we were near the end we hit a blizzard with the temperature dropping further and the wind blowing the snow horizontally.

Still we got back in one piece and there is quite a feeling of satisfaction and it makes any other rides seem not as bad! There's no dropping riders on our runs though, although the group opens up on sections people keep an eye on those around them so if anything happens someone is there to give a hand. I wouldn't go on the rides otherwise although it was quite odd when doing my first 24 hour race last year and being out on my own with no-one around.

John