Top 8 Night Riding Mistakes | Mountain Bike Skills

In association with Exposure.

It's as easy as riding a bike, right? Not at night it's not! Riding at night is a challenging and unfamiliar environment to ride in. From going out alone to riding an unfamiliar trail, here are some of the mistakes that we've made over our time out at night!

Night riding is great fun. It gives you a chance to look at the same trails you ride everyday in a different light (literally). It's a great environment to work on reactive riding skills and adds a whole new dimension to your mountain biking experience!

Riding In Twilight
It's not bright enough for your eyes and it's not dark enough for your lights! Avoid riding at twilight!

Riding Alone
Trees and other obstacles come out of the darkness a lot quicker. Even if riding an incredibly familiar trail, we do not recommend riding alone at night.

Ride Somewhere Familiar
You shouldn't attempt a trail or even a line you haven't done before for the first time at night. Ride it during the day, become familiar with it, then hit it at night!

Getting Air
The landings of jumps can become a dark spot when getting airborne. If you're unsure, get a friend to light your landing area with their lights before you take off!

Blinding Your Mates
A persons night vision can take a long time to adjust and will disappear straight away once a bright light is shined in their eyes. Try to avoid blinding both your riding mates and oncoming people or riders with your lights by dipping them on the settings, looking at their feet or to their side or altering the path of your beam with a hand.

Light Set Up
Not too far down, not too far forward. Somewhere in the middle so you can see what's coming on trail is just right!

Shadows
If you ride right behind a mate with your lights on full beam, their vision will become obstructed by the shadow their body is throwing off of your lights! Not to mention the distraction of you right behind them! Back off and leave more room at night, especially as your mate could be more likely to crash!

Loose brackets
Always make sure your light mounting brackets are up to torque. Too tight and you risk damaging your bars, too loose and your light will be pointing straight down (or even worse behind you!) after a short section of bumpy trail.

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[gmbn]

What's the worst riding mistake you've ever made?

[willshawyer]

Me: goes outside for a night ride.
Also me: *sprints back inside screaming*

[williamthebutcherssonprodu]

Who would win?
Your shinbone
Some spikey peadly bois

[leomau]

Halloween is not the best night to ride your bike

[neildaniel]

I night ride all year round, according to this I do it all wrong!! I go out alone most of the time and regularly ride from full light through twilight into full darkness. In the summer I can go from light through dusk, all the way to sunrise and finish in light again! Something amazing about being the only one out in the woods (well apart from the animals and the odd dogger...)

[molinosdomene]

Good tips when the winter comes and we have to keep training :)
The worst mistake is always to forget to recharge the batteries

[williamkeys]

I guess I'm bad because many of my night rides start in twilight. I just slow down a bit and stick to familiar trails.

[headoverbars]

Sorry Doddy,
I ride alone in the dark every day:/
I know you say it's not a good idea and I agree its a risk, but I have no friends who bike(yet, we just moved) and night riding is not only the best time, sometimes it's the only time... and it is my time for catharsis. Best to invest in good night equipment.

[farmermatt]

Hi there, great video as always. Can you put up a video or show us the attachments to put the night light on to your POC mountain bike helmet please?

[suzannebentham]

If your light comes loose on the cable

[neilmcdonnell]

Heading out tonight for 3rd night ride this season. Totally agree on going with mates. Last year on the one ride we had a bottom bracket fall apart, I snapped a tendon and another lad almost dislocated his collar bone. At the very least let people know where your going, and when you hope to get back.

[iigtracingii]

Great content! Greetings from Switzerland 🇨🇭

[Duraltia]

Heh... Night Riding... Brings back some good old memories of my time while I was working in France.

HQ was around the outskirts of Paris in Vélizy 2 and my home was in Le Chesnay which meant I had to drive past the Castle of Versailles, through the majority of the city and along the highway next to the woods.

The French authorities, in their wisdom, decided to have the lights lighting the foot/bicycle path we were taking to be shut down during winter so for the most of the year we driving in perfectly lit conditions along the path but on our first evening shift, on our way back home, we noticed the lights being off and no one of our group having any bicycle lights.

So we basically drove home in a pitch black night only rarely seeing some glimmer of what was ahead of us when one guy at the front went like full ape-shit after he got smacked in the face by a branch we all knew was coming at some point, just not when, because we saw it when we came to work during the day.

Next day everyone had a bicycle light - Good times =)

[Asgath]

Great video, proper love night riding!
Minor criticism here - the editing or the dialogue felt a bit rushed at times, feeling a bit choppy or without a natural cadence?

[manlillab]

Great video! would also recommend to keep mouth closed and wear glasses. Those lights esp on helmets can attract quite allot of bugs.

[BkMSE]

Why is Blake in distress so entertaining?

[dralexbrothers]

Two lights very important. One on helmet the other on handle bars. If one fails you have a backup. Handle bar light looses sight of the trail coming into a tight corner so having one on the helmet prevents that problem.

[inplaskett]

Blake looks so sad and lonely in the thumbnail "doddy why did you leave me?"

[NotBull]

I broke 4 of these rules on new years eve, and I had a great time :)

[Paganiproductions]

i do lots of evening riding mostly alone no problems so far