I see the light!

All I wanted for Christmas was a new light for my bike. Okay, truth be told, I wanted a bunch of stuff, but a light is what I really needed. I’ve always biked a bit to work. Not everyday, but periodically. Kind of a fair weather biker thing. But this past May, I decided to go all the way and bike everyday, rain or shine. I became adicted–even a bit obsessed. But I loved it. I even loved it in the rain once I splurged for the $10 fender for my back tire. (such an improvement over the jet stream of water that used to run down my back side)

Other “one less car” commuters ask me about my ride. And my brakes and what kind of gears and derailers I use. The conversation is always cut short when I tell them about my $50 Craig’s list special I have. “It gets me safely from A to b”, I tell them. They aren’t impressed.

I had no intention to continue biking in the winter. It gets dark. It gets cold. The trail is all ice. My car is a cozy 85 degrees after it’s been warming up for 30 minutes in my driveway. (this is an Alaskan thing–we all do it) But after talking to a friend at an end of summer party, I started to entertain the idea. “Just do it once a week”, he said. Hmmm. I hadn’t considered the option of periodic winter biking. So I went on to question everyone I knew or didn’t know about the skinny on winter biking. What equipment is must have? What is just nice to have? I wanted to go into this well informed. I don’t think I asked this many people this many questions when we bought our house!

Bottom line, must have gear: studded tires, good lighting. Everything else you can wing. Living in Alaska, I have plenty of warm layers so I really had no concerns about staying warm. The studded tires I picked up on Craig’s List for $100. Nokiam, carbides–I highly recommend them. Now for a light. Being 24/7 sunlight all summer, I hadn’t needed a bike light before. But come October, it was starting to be dark enough to need one both ways to work.

I started off with the Planet Bike Blaze 1W. It is 76 lumens of nothing. My backpacking headlamp was brighter. So that’s what I used. I strapped in on my handlebars and quickly realized why people spend the big bucks on bike lights. I drooled at riders passing me with their fancy light set ups, some as bright as my car headlamp.

Santa–aka my in laws–pulled through. I am now the proud owner of the NiteRider Minewt.600 Cordless LED Lithium Ion light that can mount on my handle bar or my helment. 600 lumens of Ahhh. Illumination is a beautiful thing. I can now see beyond 10 feet in front of my bike! And more importantly, cars can see me. The Newt mounts tightly to my handle bar and doesn’t wiggle at all. I can charge  it with a USB cord from my computer or the wall. So far, the battery is lasting about 1.5 hours at full bright. Not bad for cold weather.

It has been well below zero all week. We’re talking -21 degrees–not that there is a big difference between -10 and -20. Yes, it takes a bit to motivate at 7 in the morning to go out into the cold, but it’s all worth it. And in case you are wondering, I’m averaging 2-3 days a week biking.