There is something very magical about my local area Rivington, and the surrounding forest at night .Now the clocks have changed, it's time to explore your local area at night.
It's such a special experience riding a mountain bike in the pitch black darkness of the Chinese Gardens at the foot of Winter Hill situated in Lancashire, North West England. You'd expect to encounter deer and rabbits and other animals but we rarely ever see them, they see and hear us first and are obviously frightened off by our bright halogen lights approaching. You're more likely to encounter deer, squirrels, and foxes in the day time. In fact the only sign of life we saw on one of our night rides was a tramp with a can of beer in his hand, I said to my friend Carolyn? Did you see that tramp? Couldn't miss him she said. We feel safe riding at night because no one can tell the difference if we're a couple of ladies or a couple of mud splattered rough lads out for a ride in the darkness.
How much can you see ahead?Well, not much is the answer to that.
The above picture is a true example of the amount you can see with my Smart twin Halogen lights
Always take a backup battery as most only last 2 hours and it's easy to forget how long you've been riding when you're enjoying yourself. My battery once died on a night ride and I could not see my hand in front of my face, I had to follow behind my friend and be guided by his helmet light and bike halogen's. Really hard to follow someone else's lights. also pays to stick to riding the area you know well because if you get lost in the darkness, you're in trouble. Never, ever, night ride alone
I smashed up my lights last year, it is a lot easier to crash your bike on a dark forest trail. I guess my Christmas present to myself this year is a new set of lights.
Picture above is Toothless Mag's, who is a member of the Scottish Women's Downhill club, I'm glad to say her smile has now been fixed. You can see what else they get up to if you visit 
