Riding in the dark

Thanks to Sean, I now have use of his halogen light. With mornings coming later, I had a chance to ride a few times in the dark using the helmet mount and the handlebar mount. In the great argument of one versus the other, I have come down on the side of handlebar mounting. With the light on the helmet, there isn't much in the way of visible shadows, which makes it hard for a nearsighted guy like me to see how big that rock really is beffore I hit it. The other drawback is dust raised by other riders. The helmet mount makes dust in the air really visible and distracting. Of course, at the speed I ride, I'm not close behind them for long, and soon the dust dissipates and I can see again.

With light coming from the handlebars, shadows help a lot with identifying the size of rocks and stuff. I did have one almost "oh crap" incident on a drop when I mis-timed lofting my front wheel and landed it while the rear was still on the upper part. The front came down pretty hard and Mr. Klein did his best to try and toss me over the handlebar. Fortunately, years of expreience at dumb mistakes kept me on top and him below. It would have been my first significant crash since arriving in Phoenix, but I put that off for another day.