Top 10 Tips For Riding At Night | Mountain Bike Skills

In association with Exposure Lights.

It's that time of year when it's almost harder to not do a night ride, so Doddy has a few tips to make sure your next ride is as good as it can be.

Make sure you've got a great light set up. Ideally you want your most powerful light mounted on your bars, and a slightly less powerful one on your helmet. Also ensure you've got a rear light with you in case you ride on any roads

Once you've got your lights, make sure you know everything about them, how long they take to charge, and what their burn time is. That is, how long you can run them on maximum power before they run out of charge.

Plan your route: when planning your route, make sure you know exactly how long it will take. It obviously needs to take less long than the burn time of your lights

Always have a spare set of lights, and a spare battery with you.

Always have details of your emergency contact on you, with I.C.E. (In Case of Emergency) written somewhere beside their name.

Riding gear: At the very least make sure you always wear a helmet. But a pair of kneepads and riding gloves is definitely a good idea. After all, things go bump in the night 😂

Carry a spare tube, a CO2 cannister and pump with you, even if you're running tubeless tyres. You just never know when you'll need them.

Always carry a really good quality multitool with you. A great place to keep it is in the hip pockets of your riding bag.

Set up a rendezvous point. That way if you and your mates get separated while riding, you know where to meet back up. Also if something bad does happen, this will be a good place for your emergency contact to come and meet you.

When riding at night, always ride with someone else. If something goes wrong while you're riding by yourself at night, you could be in big trouble.

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[alexkarliychuk]

It would better when people wrote real comments about every GMBN helpful video, but not who first, second, third, 1000th and etc! Give some respect to GMBN, they make videos everyday for us, MTBikers!

[robbouchard]

Top tip, when temperatures dip below zero ditch the CO2 cartridge. The combination of the cold CO2 and cold air freezers the tube making it brittle and causing it to rupture. I went through 2 tubes one winter and only worked out why during my walk out!!

[paulw]

Doddy, there's two more points about having both a helmet light and a handlebar light. The first is that if one light fails why you are doing a jump or shredding a trail, you won't be in complete darkness as the other is still working, so you can stop safely and see why the light failed. The second is in regards to the handlebar light. Since the handlebars are much lower than your eyes, you can easily see the shadows from objects that the light picks up, so you get a good idea how big that rock is, how deep those ruts are. If you only had a helmet light, the light becomes "flat" in the sense that you don't see shadows.

[Jereisalem]

Good to see you on the bike again Neil!

[christopherdempsey]

I wish this video came earlier as my first proper night ride was eh on the more dangerous side.Bit great video, you guys are the bomb!

[baconfister]

On a handful of trails I have ridden, I have been able to go faster at night due to the fact that the number of hikers and/or trail zombies is less than 0.1%. Night riding is unlike any other type of trail riding. It’s very surreal - you get to see feel smell the things that go bump in the night!!!

[macs]

Loved the video! Could we have a budget light buying guide video?

[yepkev]

You should make a why a bike should fit you vid, or a helmet description vid on what different helmets are for, a vid on strength to get stronger for mountain biking, or good full suspension bikes for first timers

[trellalyons]

Thanks, Guys. Great stuff, love your videos!

[koko-lores]

5:23 don't stop in the middle of the trail, especially at night. not only might someone crash into you, but also your buddy, who went ahead, might wonder where you are and start to get worried.

[wcovey]

I appreciate the videos guys but this is like the 3rd or 4th video on night riding you made on night riding. I really want to see that vintage vs. modern! Keep up the good work guys!

[yepkev]

Great tips, thanks for the ideas, those lights are so expensive

[Overdozeofthedemoscene]

Gmap and the fb messenger has a position sharing function. I always use it, when i ride alone.

[coldforgedcowboy]

For night riding I also recommend wearing clear lens glasses so you don't get poked in the eye with a stick or something.

[walbertjames]

I would avoid placing any type of tools in the hip pocket as well. I used to do this until I crashed and landed on my side. Had a nice welt from the tool digging into my hip.

[Jbzy]

#askgmbn The lights you guys use on the show are wonderful, but they cost more than my bike. Do you have a suggestion for ones that don't cost so much that will still work well?

[joshmelvin]

Good video again lads. Have the same lights as you Doddy and love them. Keep up the good work. Also when are the freak week T-Shirts shipping

[BigSmartQuiz]

What is the bag / rucksack that Doddy has in this video please?

[batbawls]

Could you guys do a video on time travel next

[ArsenicEagle]

You guys should make a video comparing some budget friendly lights😉