Free Mountain Bike Wallpaper
March 20th, 2007
If you are looking to spice up your desktop and are a bit of a mountain bike fanatic then read on…
Mountain Bike Cumbria is giving away some top quality Mountain Bike wallpaper for your desktop… for free!
As well as some MBC themed wallpaper (that juicy green colour), there are also some great high resolution action shots taken by James himself.
The wallpaper is available for download in several sizes: 800×600, 1024×768 and 1280×1024
Biking: a rainy day out!
November 11th, 2006
To Ambleside and back
Taking advantage of a reading week accorded to me by University, I’ve nipped back home for the weekend. Despite having quite a lot of work to do still, I couldn’t resist the temptation to nip out for a long mountain bike ride yesterday with my dad. Setting out from Kendal, we cycled in on the back roads to Stavely.
The route
From Staveley, we cycled up micklemoss, a great offroad ride and ended up at the top of Kentmere by the church after some very fast descents (due to a long required adrenaline rush from being confined to a city). After this, our legs and climbing skills were put to the test as we battled up the famous ‘Garburn pass’. I was actually quite impressed that I made it up most of the tricky sections despite not having rode a bike for a month. Gaining traction was very difficult on the loose, damp pebbles. After making it to the top, it was a swift plummet down the other side to Limefitt caravan park. We then took another bridleway that led us via Jenkins Crag into Ambleside.
The Rain
Well… we knew it was coming, but we hadn’t quite realised the extent! However, motivated by the prospects of a warm bowl of soup at Chesters Cafe (Skelwith Bridge), we motored up the hills. Feelilng revived, rather full and now wearing some handsome powerstretch leggings we were yet again ready to face the rain. After weaving around the back roads, we made it to the hawkshead ferry. Despite our gloves and shoes being pooled with water, we were still warm and had not yet despaired. As the night was drawing in, we put on our headlights and with the little energy remaining in my legs (secretly, I don’t think my dad’s were tired in the slightest - although he did push up most of Garburn), we made it back to Kendal along the crook road to be greeted with a nice warm shower.
All in all, it was a great day out. I also hope to be able to get the route up on here for anybody who is interested. Apologies to James from MBC who is probably reading this rather enviously having being cooped up at JPi all day in front of his computer 
North Face Trail
September 24th, 2006
First Blast Round
I went for my first blast round the new North Face Trail at Grizedale yesterday. Its a brilliant trail with some super sections of windy singletrack including boardwalks, berms and some nice little dropoffs and jumps. I can’t wait to go again because I’ll know where the berms are next time so I can gain some extra speed! Excellent!
Lumicycle NiMH Halogen Bike Lights
January 16th, 2006
Situation
I am a keen mountain biker and regularly commute to a small village where I work in a cafe. It just so happens that all the best mountain bike rides in the whole area are only 5 minutes away from the cafe but with the current winter darkness, it was impossible for me to go on a chillout ride after work. As there are no decent rides where I live, combined with the fact that it is dark by the time I get back from school, I just wasn’t able to do any offroading. This was when I first considered night riding! I already needed some headlights for some of the back-lanes on my journey to and from work and I certainly needed something bright to prevent cars hitting me. Therefore, I could just have bought some bright LED’s which would have done this job quite well.
The Reality
After a few offroad rides after work (a great way to wind down after a hard day), I soon realised that I would need something brighter than commuter lights if I wanted to go fast off-road and really enjoy myself.
Shopping Time
I started looking around to see what was available on the market and set my price range to the £60 mark. The first things I ran into were the some of the cateye range in my local bike store. I was recommended a minimum of 20 watts of power if I wanted to do serious off roading. The HL-RC230 Dual Light Set caught my eye. However, with only a 1 hour run time at 20 watts and a bulky Lead Acid battery, this just did not seem to be up to the job.
I then noticed that Evans Cycles were selling the Cateye ABS 20 Ni-MH lights at a hugely reduced price (£70 instead of £100) and these immediately caught my attention. The batteries are much slimmer and are Ni-MH, much more efficient and easier to recharge properly.They are also much better (or less worse) for the environment than Nickel Cadmium lights. They do not suffer from the memory effect associated with Ni-Cads. Again, 20 watts of power are provided by two 10 watt bulbs but again, only an hour and a bit of lights on full power. My shortest ride is about 50 minutes long when I go full pelt, there is no way these would get me home aswell! Disappointed, I went on some review sites and forums to see what the other riders had to say.
Eureka!
The one word I took away from all the forums was lumicycle!
Everybody seemed to give these mysterious lights uncanny ratings and some would even swear by them. Intrigued, I proceded to their website at www.lumicycle.com . At this point, it is probably worth warning you that the prices you see here are the only prices you will ever pay as lumicycle sell direct (they are a small firm based in Brighton). There are no cheap resellers.
The lumicycle concept
Lumicycle basically have three ranges, running on two different technologies. The first is the halogen lamp range; these consist of one or two halogen lamp units which are subsequently connected to a NiMH or Lithium Ion (Li-ion) battery.
The lamps come in a whole range of wattages from 5 to 35 and have either spot, mid or flood reflectors. For a full table of possiblities click here. The batteries (both Li-ion and NiMH) are available in a bottle format or as a strap on battery back (in a bag) which can be attached to the frame.
Li-Ion
Whislt there is only one NiMH battery, the Li-Ion batteries are available as three different models which basically offer different burn times; elite, pro and endurance.
For each upgrade, the price increases by £30 or so but the burn time of the pro is double that of the elite and the endurance, three times!
As a marker, you can expect to get 2 hours out of the elite battery running a 12W spot (the most commonly used lamp on a two lamp setup).
NiMH
The NiMh battery is the equivalent of the pro Li-Ion battery in burn time but the Li-Ion batteries have a higher energy density (if both batteries weighed the same then the Li-Ion would last longer). This is an important consideration for racers.
Better Still!
The other main range that lumicycle run is the Halide light range. These work in a completely different way. Instead of using bulbs, such as Halogen or Xenon bulbs, Halide lights work in a similar way to an arc welder (hence they are often called arc lights). They create a high voltage spark between two electrodes that gives out an incredibly bright blue/white light. They are four times as efficient as halogen lights (halogen lights are only 10% efficient) and so a 10W arc light gives out the equivalent output as a 40W halogen light. If you are a very serious rider and need long burn times with incredibly bright lights then these are for you. Sadly, the starting price is £260 for just one lamp (I say just one but really that is ample for most) and the starting price for 2 lamps is £430. There is a lot more to be said about these but they are not in my price range (neither are the others really!) and they are not what this article is about.
The result
So in the end, I bought the NiMH battery in the bag format. This is lighter than the bottle format. Iwent for the two lamp option. I chose a 20 Watt mid lamp and a 12 Watt spot. Whilst the recommended off roading set is the 12 Watt spot and a 20 Watt Flood, I was recommended on forums to get the Mid as the flood is just too wide and does not penetrate enough, the mid is between a spot and a flood. All lamps (except the 5W) cost the same, however many Watts they are. This may sound odd as some people (including myself) would expect to pay more for a 35 Watt bulb. In fact, this is not the way light systems work, it is the battery that makes them expensive! Each lamp comes with a mount attached, these are available as either quick release mounts (camlock), zip-tie mounts, or an oversized camlock at a slight surcharge (for handlebars with larger diameter). Again, I chose the standard quick release mounts. The battery comes with a Y-splitter lead that converts the one cable coming from the battery into two identical cables- one for each lamp. If you pay slightly more, you can have three leads coming from the battery, allowing you to run either one of the tail LED lights that lumicycle sell or to run a lamp on your helmet. Helmet mounts are available in two or one lamp options and strap on through the air vents.
Please note…
An important option to consider is the battery charger. If you buy Li-Ion batteries then a smart charger comes as standard. However, the NiMH battery has two charger options, standard or smart. The smart charger will charge your battery to 95% in 4 to 6 hours (depending on how full it was already!). At 95%, it will automatically switch to trickle charge and it is considered “safe” and indeed good practise to leave it charging on trickle for up to 24 hours to get the maximum battery life and lifetime. The standard charger is a risky business. Whilst it is E20 cheaper than the smart charger, it does not sense when the battery is full and so you risk overcharging it. The standard charge takes around 16 hours and has to be timed on a stopwatch! If that is not enough, you have to take into consideration how full the battery is already and try and guess when it is full. Lesson to be drawn from all of this- get a smart charger and you run much lower risks.
Setting Up
Getting everything going was very easy. First of all, I connected the battery to the charger and charged it for 24 hours. As mentioned, the normal charge time would have been 4 to 6 hours but the first time, it is recommended to charge the full 24 hours to set the battery into its “cycle”. If you ignore these instructions, you risk reducing your batteries lifetime and getting shorter burn times. This can be undone and there are instructions on the lumicycle site on how to do this!
With a battery charged, I strapped it onto the crossbar of my bike and mounted the lamps. This was an easy business and you can get the lamps on and off in seconds. Whats more, they are really firmly attached and once you clamp the quick release on them, they will not budge an inch. You can loosen the quick release if you wish to allow you to adjust them vertically whilst riding. The lamps also swivel horizontally, again, they are nice and firm and will only move if you deliberately swivel them. Finally, I plugged in the leads from the battery, tucked any excess cable under the velcro (this works very well for those of you worried about cable dangling around) and turned the lights on. Bliss.
Performance
These lights are incredible! They have been “overvolted” by the guys (and girls?) at lumicycle so that 12 Watts is effectively 13.6 and the 20 Watt is actually 23. This is done by applying a higher voltage through the halogen bulb to increase their output- it does not however, reduce their lifetime. The lamps come in a sealed CNC machined and anodised aluminium unit (choice of colours!). The front of the unit can be quickly unscrewed and the bulb can be easily removed to allow for a quick bulb change during a race.
The Lights
The 12 Watt is brilliant for fast riding as it penetrates far ahead, whilst keeping some light just in front of you. It is a fairly narrow beam but this is great for singletrack. It also works very well on the roads and many cars have dipped their headlights for me or even slowed down (thinking that there is a car coming).Please note that you should not use the 20 Watt on roads (in fact it may be illegal!). You certainly don’t have to worry about being seen. The 20 Watt is also exceptional and is massively bright. Don’t even attempt to peer over your handlebars and look at the bulb- it will hurt, I guarantee it. This lamp gives you plenty of light ahead of you (although not as far as the 12 Watt) but really lights up all the ground in the mid and close range and to the sides. You can see absolutely everything. I recently cycled my favourite off-road circuit and was able to ride it at full speed with just this light on. However, combined, the two lights are an awesome combination- there are no blank patches where you cannot see. My only piece of advise is to remember that on the corners, you cannot peer around without turning the handlebars- this is the only point at which a helmet mount would be worth investing in. This is also solved by turning on the 20 Watt bulb!!! I tend to ride with the 12W most of the time to save battery. This is easily bright enough. Even with thick gloves, the toggle switch can be used to quickly flick on the 20 Watt for the fast sections or where extra visibility is required (or for getting cars to dip). I would recommend the 20 Watt bulb for people buying a one lamp system as it is such an all-rounder. However, if you need the longer battery life then the 12 Watt is still an excellent option and will not hinder you. Better still- get both!
Battery Life
The battery life of the lights is excellent, I have not yet run out of light and I have been out for at least 3 hours. It is recommended that you switch them off as soon as they fade as this prevents damage to the battery. These lights do not fade until they have used 95% of the battery life available, unlike Lead Acid batteries which tend to slowly fade right from the start.
Compared to my Dad’s BLT lights, these win by a long way in terms of brightness and battery life (and his BLT’s are a similar wattage).
The Verdict
The overall conclusion to be drawn from this is that Lumicylce lights are one of the most robust systems out there. The system is fully modular allowing you to add to your collection or swap around a bit. For example, I am able to change to a Li-Ion battery if I wish and everything will run just fine. I can also buy other lamps of different wattages. The CNC machined and anodised aluminium housing of the lamps is bombproof and the toggle switch has a rubber seal. I am particularly impressed by how little time it takes for them to be taken on and off the bike- great if you have more than one bike (lucky you) or you are sharing these with somebody else. The battery is surprisingly small, although quite dense. The whole system is generally well thought out and you will be glad to know that replacement parts come at a reasonable price and can be bought on the website. The whole system is under warranty for year and lumicycle also offer a repair service one the warranty is gone.
Yet another Incentive
If you were to buy the same system as the one I bought, you would also earn enough “photon” loyalty points to buy a “Glow-Ring” for free. This cylinder attaches to the front of the halogen lamp and emanates light to the sides allowing traffic to see you. Whilst distracting if used off road, it is apparently great whilst on roads for extra security. Mine is on its way!
I will maybe post some further reviews on these lights as I use them more and I intend to get some photos up on my gallery. I will update this blog when I have done so.
Ouch!!
Final cost, £186. Yes, that is more than three times my initial budget (£60)! Probably three times better than anything I would have bought at that price though.
To find out more go to www.lumicycle.com