Emily
Good morning, peeps.
One of the enduring features of living in southern Arizona is the heat. You learn quickly that year-round riding here means hitting the trails in the mornings/evenings to make things bearable.
Though the rest of America is cloaked in a tawdry winter storm warning, today I caught an early ride on Desert Classic. The temperature was a crisp 43º F (6º C).
I catch this ride a few times a week before work. The trip rounds out to a nice 9 mi (14.5 km) loop with about 680′ (207 m) climbing.
Gear
My weapon of choice for riding the night? The NiteRide Pro 3600 Enduro Remote.
This unit comes with an 8 Cell Li-Ion battery that also offers a USB port.
A handlebar mounted remote.
And a 3600 lumen head (roughly equivalent to a car headlight).
Thoughts
I have been a NiteRider customer for many years and generally I’ve been happy with this latest revision. The only issue I’ve had thus far is a bum battery that refused to charge at unboxing.
Working with their very responsive technical support NiteRider explained that a fully discharged battery will never charge again, suggesting this unit possibly sat on the shelves for more than three months. They also explained that the unit must be charged when in storage which I found somewhat head-scratching. Still, they replaced the battery at no expense to me so it worked out.
As for field of view I’ve been perfectly comfortable with this unit as my only source of light, though Fred also wears a smaller light on his helmet. I’ve also done very technical high speed descents with this unit revealing the beam to be more than adequate. Below is an example of how wide this light is.
The handlebar mount is also rock solid.
The remote is useful when passing head-on traffic, though I feel a simple auto-dimmer would have been better.
The USB port on the battery at first seems somewhat bizarre, until Fred and I realized it was quite useful to power our equipment during longs days of filming for our YouTube channel.
My only genuine complaint about this product is the charging strategy – you have to pull apart the D connector that couples the head to the battery and plug in a flimsy wall adapter. Over time I am worried the delicate connector will wear out with habitual plugging and unplugging. A seemingly much better solution would have been to use the USB port like every other product does.
Recommendation
I give this product an enthusiastic thumbs up.
Airstream MTB 