Let There Be Night : High-output lamps light the way for trail cyclists who seek new challenges. Cool air and high speeds come with the territory.

It’s Wednesday evening at the bottom of Sulphur Mountain Road. Cliff swallows are gulping down the final insects of the day while the last dust-streaked hikers and mountain bike riders straggle to the end of the popular trail.

As the birds settle into their nests and the daylight cyclists head home to supper and TV, a half dozen riders in clean jerseys chat idly in the cool, blue light of evening. They’re waiting. Waiting for the sky over Lake Casitas to dim and uncover the evening star.

All of a sudden somebody flips a switch, and it’s prime time for the latest mountain bike trend--night-time trail riding.

The newest battery-powered, high-output lamps have given mountain biking a new dimension, and companies that manufacture the lights, such as the Thousand Oaks-based Turbo Cat, report that sales double each year. Those lights are turning up on trails throughout Southern California.

“In Cheeseboro Canyon and Ranch Sierra Vista we get a lot of night riding,” ranger Robert Heagy said. “I’d say that on any given weeknight at Cheeseboro, we have 20 to 30 riders.”

There are plenty of reasons for the popularity. For one, temperatures are cooler at night. For another, the same boring trail that you’ve ridden a rut in suddenly becomes challenging.

Paul Sailor, an electrical engineer from Ventura, has ridden Sulphur Mountain and several other popular trails at night. He enjoys the added challenge but also the tranquillity.

“During the day when you stop, the sun is blazing and all the other riders are buzzing by,” he said. “But at night it’s so cool and quiet all you hear are crickets and the wind in the trees.”

Then there’s the motivation nobody wants to talk about--the need for speed.

Fast moving bikes have on occasion bowled over hikers or barreled into the back end of equestrians. As a result, many trails have been closed to bikes, and those that remain open have speed limits. For all practical purposes, the speed limit signs come down at night.

“Realistically speaking, some people are riding over the speed limit,” ranger Heagy said, “but there are so few users at night that the potential for collision is low.”

Speed is the rule on Wednesdays along the county-maintained Sulphur Mountain Road. It’s a regular club night when dozens of riders climb the well-maintained trail for the banzai ride back down.

A few, such as Tren Morris of Ventura, get to the top and wait for darkness to descend before heading down.

Sounds dangerous, doesn’t it? Going kamikaze down a pitch-black trail, nothing but a slim beam of light separating you from a disfiguring accident.

But veteran riders say a good light lets you descend faster and, in some respects, more safely than in daylight when the potential for plowing through an elementary school field trip is very real.

“It’s great,” Morris said. “You can come up here at dusk, wait for it to get dark and fly back down.”

On one such night, four riders blazed by within feet of Ventura hiker Tom Adam, surrounding him in a plume of dust. But despite the controversy that swirls between bikers and other trail users, Adam was philosophical.

“When you go into the woods you have to watch for rattlesnakes,” he said. “Sulphur Mountain is one of the few places where guys can ride as fast as they want. This is a major mountain bike trail and as a hiker, when you’re on it, you have to watch out for bikes.”

He added it would be thoughtful for a bicycle club to post a sign alerting unaware hikers to the presence of bikes.

The after-hours absence of boot-shod pedestrians and horseback riders doesn’t mean the trail is completely free of hoofed road hazards. The hills surrounding Sulphur Mountain Road are home to cattle and deer. Broadside one of these critters at 35 m.p.h. and you’ll get more than a bent wheel.

“I don’t know of anybody who’s ever center punched one,” Morris said on the way up. But on the way down, he and his wing man, Mike Gourley, also from Ventura, nearly notched a new experience.

“I was about six inches behind Tren’s wheel and he just locked his brakes up,” Gourley said, still breathing hard minutes after the near collision.

“I tried to shout, DEER!” Morris said apologetically.

“All I saw was you lock up and I swerved to the left. That’s when I saw it. I must have missed by just two feet,” Gourley said. “Oh man! I’m still shaking.”

The rest of the fauna are less hazardous. Turbo Cat owner Tom Robbins finds nocturnal wildlife one of the most remarkable things about night riding.

“When I ride out at Malibu Creek during the day I never see mice, but at night the kangaroo rats are all over the place. Really, they’re thick as cockroaches. Then there are these strange birds, they’re called night jars, I think. They sit in the trail until the last possible moment and flush right over your head.”

Even setting aside the natural tableau, Robbins is understandably hyped about night riding. Sales at Turbo Cat are up 160% just through the third quarter of this year.

“The fourth quarter is our biggest one. People get used to riding after work in the summer, then the days start getting shorter, that’s when sales pick up,” Robbins said.

At Nightsun--a Pasadena company that also manufactures high-output bicycle lights--sales have doubled every 18 months for the last seven years, said owner Tobin George.

“Some of the sales are due to bicycle commuting, but night riding is definitely growing, particularly at this time of year.”

The traditional generator that attached to the bike’s rear wheel produced about three watts and you couldn’t get much more power than that without installing a generator that looked as if it came from under the hood of a car. In contrast, today’s lights generate as much as 40 watts, a beam luminous enough that bicycle commuters say cars sometimes flash their brights so cyclists will turn it down.

Consumer demand for such portable products as notebook computers and electric razors greatly increased research in rechargeable battery technology, Tobin said. Batteries now last longer, recharge more quickly and yield more power.

Robbins hopes research into electric cars will produce a breakthrough that results in a battery that is lighter and even more powerful--and maybe cheaper as well.

As it is, Dave Hamilton, part owner of Allied Bicycles in Ventura, said you can expect to spend $120 to $200 for a decent light set that burns two to three hours.

Of course you can ride without a light. A full moon is the oldest night-riding aid. Experienced riders say that if you know the trail, a full moon is plenty bright even for relatively high-speed descents.

Barring moonlight, Hamilton said, as many as three riders without lights can follow a leader with a strong lamp.

“You just have to get right on his rear wheel and trust him,” he said.

Here’s an alternative for the budget minded: Hamilton said cyclists with weaker, less expensive lights riding three abreast can generate enough candle power to illuminate a road, but the road has to be wide enough. This is not a viable method for the narrow, technically difficult trails mountain bikers call single track.

Yet it’s the diminishing access to single track that draws a fringe element to night riding.

“Lots of guys ride out of bounds,” Hamilton said. “Guys in the underground scene. If they’ve been eyeing an off-limit hill for a couple of months, they are more likely to get a light and do it when the ranger is at home asleep.”

It seems like a rule of nature. Whether it’s outlaw skiers snaking through the trees, computer hackers with modems knocking on locked electronic gateways or mountain bikers with lights: Mobility seeks access.

“There’s more illegal riding (at night) than I care to admit,” Robbins said. “But you can see them a mile away and if the rangers want to catch them, they can.”

For his part, Ranger Robert Heagy doesn’t see the growth of night riding as a major threat to public safety or trail preservation.

“The big thing about night riding is that it spreads park visitors out over more hours,” Heagy said. “I’d have to say that on the balance, it’s a positive thing.”

Cyclists, Hikers Clash on Styles

So what’s this controversy between mountain bikers and hikers? You’d think their common outdoor interest would create a bond, but no.

It’s a curious trait of humans that we’re most scornful of those who share interests similar to our own. Sailboat owners regularly lower the boom on the power boat crowd and fly fishermen save the sharpest barbs for their brethren who fish with bait.

However, in the case of mountain bikers and other trail users the conflict is not without cause. It’s not so much a case of environmental damage: Studies show that on most terrain, cycles cause as much damage as hiking boots and less than equestrians. It’s the clash of styles (and sometimes bodies) that has created an uneasy relationship.

The leisurely pace of hikers and horses doesn’t mix with the 25- to 45-m.p.h. rate at which some cyclists descend the trail.

A horseback rider from Ojai who asked that his name not be used said when he sees cyclists speeding down the trail, he turns his horse broadside, blocking the trail and bringing the cyclists to a sudden halt, whereupon he lectures them on safety and etiquette in language that’s anything but polite.

As a result of the conflict, more and more areas have been closed to cyclists since the first production mountain bike was manufactured in 1980. Wilderness areas such as the Sespe, Chumash and Matilija are among the public lands where mountain bikes are barred.

“Sespe was a place that had the best this sport had to offer,” said Mickey McTigue, author of a guide to mountain biking in Ventura County.

“We used to do a ride every November starting over in the Lockwood area, ride to Ojai, stay overnight at the Sespe Hot Springs and next day ride out and down 33 to Ojai. That’s all changed with the wilderness across there.”

Oddly enough, mountain bikes are excluded under a law that predates the explosion of all-terrain bicycles by 20 years. The Wilderness Act of 1964 prohibits “mechanized vehicles,” and even the Sierra Club, the main opponent of broader bicycle access, generally concedes that the language was meant to apply to such motorized vehicles as dirt bikes and 4-wheel drive trucks. The club maintained, however, that the intent of the law would have excluded mountain bikes from public lands.

But this year the Sierra Club acknowledged a difference between motorized and non-motorized mechanical vehicles, said George Darnes, chairman of the Sierra Club’s off-road vehicle subcommittee.

“As a result of a conference in April with the International Mountain Bicycling Assn., the Sierra Club no longer opposes bicycles on public lands outside of wilderness areas,” he said. “But we still oppose mechanized vehicles in wilderness areas whether those vehicles are mountain bikes, wheeled carts or what have you.”

In the last five years, cyclists and the Sierra Club have come to a much better agreement about mountain bikes in the back country, said Thousand Oaks resident Mark Langton, editor of Mountain Biking magazine.

That results from a concerted effort by cyclists to be good citizens when sharing recreational resources with other users. Consequently, the trend of trail closures has begun to reverse itself.

One more cautionary note, though. If you’re a cyclist going for a ride in the coming months, beware of the biggest potential shared-use hazard of all: deer hunters. Watch out that your bar ends don’t look like antlers.

Night Biking Scene

Here are a few night rides in the area:

Third Thursday of every month. Meet at 6 p.m. at Open Air Cycles, 1783 E. Main St., Ventura. 653-1100.

Cycle Scene

Every Tuesday 7:45 p.m. Meet at Malibu State Park, Sycamore Canyon entrance off Pacific Coast Highway. 650-9338.

Newbury Park Bicycle Shop

A group usually rides east county trails two or three nights a week. Call for times. 498-7714.

Allied Bicycles

Wednesdays at 6 p.m. Meet at the shop, 2728 E. Main St., Ventura, or call for designated meeting place. 648-7272.

K & A

Starting in October, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 6:30 and 7 p.m. Some rides meet at the shop, 1795 S. Victoria Ave. in Ventura, some meet at the trail. Call first. 654-8062.