I’ve been riding at night lately and I’m loving it. However, I must admit that jumping, even small jumps and bunny hops, causes the ground to disappear.
I’m currently running 1000 lumens on my handle bars and 1000 lumens on my helmet. I’m not sure if I should go for more lumens or just a wider flood light on my handle bars.
Suggestions?
I run a 1200 lumen spot on my helmet and a few hundred lumens of flood-ish light on my bars. The bar light is tilted down until my front tire is just lit up and it’s mainly to cover near-field for technical sections. The searchlight on my head lets me read ahead for fast stuff and look around curves.
I think it’s normal for the ground to disappear on jumps and drops. It’s what’s ahead that really counts, not what’s underneath. Your helmet light should illuminate the landing if it’s pointed where you’re looking. Make sure it’s not pointed too high or too low maybe? Or try pointing your bar light down a little?
Night riding by nature is more frenetic and allows less reaction time than daytime riding, I think that’s why it’s so fun. All you see is what’s immediately ahead, not what’s to the side or above or behind, and what’s ahead is all that matters anyway so you can just focus in and forget the rest of the world exists.
Ivan
I think the angle of my helmet light may need adjusting. I’ll try adjusting that and possibly acquire more of a flood light on the bars. My problem is that when I’m in the air I’m not spotting my landing soon enough but I see past it. My wife suggested I slow down and stay on the ground. That’s probably the best advice that I refuse to consider! lol
You could add an led light strip on the down tube and run to a power pack in a seat pouch? Seal any connections with plasti-dip to water proof.
Used to do a lot of ultra marathon training at night and always got terrible tunnel vision with lower power lighting. It was nice not seeing too far ahead actually and it was a surprising mental boost. But going way slower than on the bikes! There are some really high power lights available these days but will drain batteries like mad. Still a nice 15,000 lumen flood is 15,000 lumens 
Oh, sorry I misunderstood slightly. Maybe try pointing your bar light a little lower? When I do drops or jumps (nothing crazy, I’m no Danny Macaskill) it’s my bar light that illuminates the landing area. My helmet light is actually pointed quite high because I tilt my head forward slightly during fast descents and I like it to project far, so it’s the near-field bar light that usually covers the landing zone.
Another issue may be the lights your using. Off-brand lights often overstate the output by ridiculous amounts or have poor beam patterns, I think it’s worth it to spring for the good stuff if you do a lot of night riding. I use a Serfas TSL-1200 on my head and a Lezyne something-drive 1100 (EDIT: Just checked, it’s actually a LiteDrive 1000XL) on the bars and so far I’ve been very happy with both of those models. I usually run the Lezyne at a lower setting of a few hundred lumens to extend battery life, the Serfas has a giant remote battery so I can run it full-bore all the time.
Beherenow, that downtube light idea is actually super cool! I seriously think I’m going to get a strip next time I order from superbrightleds and try that out! Already have some battery banks I could use.
Ivan
Toying with the idea of going for the Exposure Six Pack MkII. Adjusts light brightness automatically based on speed and the lense is made to be both a spot and flood light at the same time. Should be good on the bars and extend the battery life. Quite expensive for a light though. Decisions, decisions 
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At the moment I’m using a pair of NiteRider Lumina Boosts, each a 1000 lumens, one on the bars and one on the helmet.
@craZivn For those who don’t know Danny Macaskill.
Danny Macaskill: Danny Daycare - YouTube
NiteRider is a respected brand, I would expect two of them to light up the trail pretty well at a thousand lumens each. I guess I would do some experimenting with different angles before dropping the cash for new equipment. Maybe even try tilting your head-mount down for near-field and landing coverage and use the bar light for long range stuff? That method didn’t work well for me but it’s worth a try, everybody rides different.
Ivan
Sooooo I don’t mountain bike, but I do ride mostly road cycling, with the occasionally like 10-15 miles on gravel trails. When I am on the grave I use a Petzl headlamp on my helmet that is like 215 lumens at its max capacity. It’s lights up a gravel trail awesomely. But thinking about doing jumps on a mountain bike at night, I feel that light on the forks or a light below where your bottle cage rack would mount would be the best spots to light up underneath you.
Freaking lasers Buddy.
When I road ride I only use a few hundred lumens as well, partially because I like to preserve as much night vision as possible so I can admire the stars and partially because there’s not too much to hit aside from dead animals and the occasional beer can. But on a mountain bike trail you want to be able to spot every deviation and contour to avoid being bucked off or diverted into a tree, so multiple thousand-lumen lights are pretty standard.
The fork-light idea is worth looking into as well! I could see even little 3-watt pods mounted on the lowers to act as “landing lights”.
Ivan
Last night when I went out I played with light angles. That helped quite a bit. I also played more with my power settings and I used the boost when descending. The extra light, at speed, seems to be my answer. I think I may add a second light to my bars.
Night riding is a blast!
Used to love to do moonlight road rides on the limited access Trace at night. Gather up during the full moon with no cloud cover and do a 30 or 50 mile ride. Cast shadows it was so bright!
I’ve moved. The Trace was great though. Limited access from Nashville Tennessee to Natchez Mississippi. Still had my Merlin custom extralight too. It was a good road for training rides and brevet’s for PBP. Good memories.
Meant to say hand held 60,000 lumens looks good. Plus it’s a discontinued model selling for 1/2 price now and then. Be silly and fun on a bike I bet. AceBeam X70.
