That’s just what I need! On top of the pitch darkness, the graveyard, the crows, the mist and the silence, now I can have images in my head of people with cameras getting attacked by mysterious forces in the woods to add to it!
Today once I finish work, I’m going to go on a ride straight away. In the light. It is going to be a bit weird after the last couple of rides.
Joe
You’ve inspired me to get sorted for, and experienced in, night riding to combat our soon-to-be-dark evenings.
I’ve just order an Exposure Joystick Maxx 2 helmet light and made a bracket for my Surefire high intensity torch to mount on my uni.
Brink on the darkness!!!
Night riding is totally the thing to do - makes your local trails new again. I’ve always found I do weekday rides much more in winter when there’s a chance of a night ride, rather than just a bit of a local spin in the light. I’m not sure how that’ll work now that my local trails are more technical though, I’m certainly getting better at hopping roots and rocks in the dark than I used to. There’s something very special about the atmosphere too, you get a kind of solitude that you never get in a daytime ride, I dunno what it is, but I love this time of year when the dark nights start to come in. When it gets proper winter, you can even do early morning night rides - I’ve done this a few times on the shortest day.
It also opens up the possibility of 24 hour racing and doing overnight rides too - I’ve done a couple of long overnighters - there is something really amazing about starting riding at 10pm when everyone else is off to the pub, and getting to your destination at dawn (I did it from London down to the seaside once - saw dawn over the sea from the top of the South Downs).
By the way, for anyone interested, my light is an MTE torch with I think a Cree MC-E LED in it, it cost £40 from Dealextreme.com, including 4 spare batteries & charger, and is jolly bright. It is slightly less convenient than the USE Joystick mentioned above (only runs for about an hour per battery on full power, so for long rides you have to swap batteries or use medium / low power some of the time), and weighs a bit more, but it is at least twice as bright, and spare batteries are dead cheap. I have yet to see how reliable it is though - it appears to work fine so far, but I’ve probably only used it for 3 hours total. Although having said that, the Joystick is a jolly nice package, very easy to use, and almost certainly bright enough for muni.
It is interesting that you mention mounting a light on the muni - I’ve never done this before, but I was just thinking yesterday that a frame mount light might be useful for particularly technical sections, where you want to see things as you hop/roll over them rather than do the hop from memory, or have to look down so your helmet light points in the right place. I’ve always ridden more flowing, singletrack type stuff before, where you don’t need to be quite so perfectly on target.
Joe
Fitted my XC handlebar to the 24 GUni and went for a spin at the local reserve, really liked the setup!
http://unplannedismounts.com/2009/09/10/kh24-guni-with-xc-bar/
Hmm.
I managed to get hit by faff and bother just before I stopped working today, and somehow I didn’t get out until about 7pm. Which is a bit late, so I packed my torch and batteries.
I was heading for some woods a couple of miles away, to explore some trails for my muni weekend, but the route to them happens to go past the bus stop trail, and I couldn’t resist riding that. Which took 15 minutes extra out of my schedule. By the time I got back to the rather hilly minor road to the woods and was riding towards my destination, the sun was just fading behind the far side of the valley (first pic).
As I rode down towards the woods, up a stupidly steep road hill, and then over some dirt tracks round into the woods, the sun disappeared completely, leaving just a hint of colour on the horizon (second pic).
Going into the woods, already it was pretty dark, although I could just ride this first easy bit without lights (third pic). I headed up the hill, up and up and up. In the deeper bits of wood I needed lights.
By the top, it was pretty darned dark, so it was time for lights on full, and to do some downhill in the dark. I rode a trail called “The Wall”, called this not because of any particular scary steepness, or a cheeky reference to the Pink Floyd song, it just happens to go along by a dry stone wall for most of it’s length. I have ridden this in the light. It is quite hard then. It has lots of steep bits, and naughty big rocks littered over it, plus it is a bit narrow, so you’re forced to drop off some of the rocks or risk pedal strikes. Oh and of course it’s in the woods, so where there aren’t rocks, there are roots. It was quite difficult in the dark. I may have fallen off more than once. Some swearing may have been involved. Every so often I managed to get a swoopy fast momentum going, which was jolly fun in the dark. At the end, I popped out at the deserted campire circle (fourth pic), and headed down what I’m sure used to be a very easy downhill back to the road, but which appears to be rather rocky and surprisingly technical now, particularly when riding flat out in the dark. Hmm. I considered climbing back up the hill to ride another trail, which I call ‘everything but’, because it has an old kitchen sink as a trail feature (you literally ride through it, it is weird). But it was getting close to 9ish and I hadn’t had my dinner yet, so I decided it was time to call it a day, and spun back along the lovely flat main road home.
Joe
So, you’re competing with turtle? 
I always love to see pictures from the mountains
aspenmike was way erlier here then i am :o
During my recent vacation in South-Tyrolia (Italy). Up on the tractor, down on the Muni (my son again on the tractor)
First Sullivan gets totally plowed, then my only local trail gets burned out in the recent fires!
At least it’s still open and the trails are still rideable.
Right! 
and i wanna make mike to ride with me once in the alps 
we stayed in Croatia for two weeks. It was really great there, we had a lot of fun at the beach:)
Martin
The sunset family picture is fantastic.
Sometimes, mother nature is all the special effects you need! I took these as the sun was setting, the last being my favorite, and shot right after sunset. The full sized versions won’t fit here, but they are spectacular and will print to poster size. The last one is an awesome wallpaper! 
Any way I could get ahold of the full size of the last one? I have a 23 inch widescreen that’s begging for that picture. xD . . . also, NEW NIGHTRIDER ON THURSDAY!!! WOOO!!!
The easiest way would be for me to upload it to photobucket…it’s still not total full size, but will fill a 17" screen very nicely. here ya go:
After you open the link below, you can click on it for an even larger size:
I will be in chamonix in middle of november, and also geneva, switzerland, and paris. Not sure what wheel I will bring, and pretty sure that I will not have allot of extra time to ride 
not the right time of year or right trip for MUni
Thanks! : ) that works pretty well, it fits my screen. Looks great out there, I can’t wait to get out for longer rides. Maybe some touring.
