Blizza Blizza

In an entry about a bicycle headlight (a $500 bicycle headlight, I should note) on the excellent Cool Tools site:

In the winter I mountain bike one to two nights a week after dark on fast technical single track trails.

OK, where do I start? Ah yes: “In the winter I mountain bike”.

I can only assume the person writing this does not live anywhere north of, say, the Mason-DIxon line, because anyone living in the Midwest or Rockies or Northeast knows damned well that riding a bike in two feet of snow is not only impossible but suicidal if you go anywhere near cars.

Continuing on with “one to two nights a week after dark”: I understand work schedules are work schedules and it gets dark at four in the afternoon in December, but c’mon, man.

Then we come to “on fast technical single track trails”. Yeah, you should probably have your head examined. If God wanted you to ride bikes on terrain like that at night in the winter, He would have given you better eyes.

I love biking and getting outdoors, but I’m not anywhere near crazy enough to spend $500 on a headlight just so I can go bombing around difficult, rocky trails in the middle of the night. You better make sure you have the local ambulance service on speed-dial, because the Magic Eight-Ball sees a trip to the ER in your near future.

I’d be more than happy to spend $500 on a light if it kept all the crazies in cars from running over me, though.