Here's some footage from the Aguinaldo track. Hehe.

Here's a little something I conjured up to sort out the lighting situation. The ideal setup, in my opinion, is to have one bar-mounted "flood" light and a helmet-mounted "spot" light. Now, prudence had gotten the better of me and instead of purchasing a dedicated (and pricey) lighting system from say, Lupine or Dinotte, I decided to buy a pair of BJ's LED lights. Basically they are Cree Q5 LEDs done up in a flashlight or torch configuration. Comes with a charger and rechargeable batteries. Claimed output on high is 250 lumens. With a run time of 3 hours on a full charge.


Now for the price (P1,900 - around US$45, each), and the versatility—these can be used as flashlights as well—I don't think there's anything out there that can match these babies. Initial tests have shown these lights give out adequate output for their size. Plus, they have no wires to snag. 


The beam pattern has a nicely-defined spot, but there's enough spill to illuminate the radius. I snagged two of these for redundancy's sake, and at the same time I wanted to experiment with using them as a helmet/bar-mounted duo.

Here's the result. The light is secured to a base salvaged from a plastic container via cut-up sections of inner tube. Another section of tube then wraps around the base, keeping everything together. The base neatly and snugly plugs into one of the vents of my helmet. Initial rides have proven The Plug stable and secure.


The perfect partner to the bar-mounted version.

Coming to some night-time singletrack near you. That'd be the real test of this setup. I won't bore you with more photos of the bar-mount. It's not as sexy as my DIY jobbie. Hehe.

MTB Guru Keith Bontrager has a famous saying: "STRONG, LIGHT, CHEAP—PICK TWO," this theorem basically summarizes the qualities you can find in any one MTB part (or frame). It's held true for quite a while. But we may have found something that has all these three qualities. OK, substitute CHEAP with AFFORDABLE, and you know what we mean.

Hygia designs and manufactures brakes that tick all the boxes in terms of weight, price and performance. We're giddy with excitement as these brakes will be landing on our shores soon, and they'll be in All Terra and Gran Trail soon after that. We've been testing them for more than a month now and so far they haven't disappointed us. We're sure they won't let you down as well and you will be pleasantly surprised as to their performance. Did we mention they're lighter than other similarly-priced and more affordable than other similarly-spec'd brands?


Let's take a closer look at one of Hygia's offerings. The Usagi.

HYGIA USAGI
The Usagi is billed as Hygia's XC brake, and that very much it is, offering a good combo of modulation and power in a svelte package. You can dial tool-free, with the red knobs and pad contact can also be tweaked with an allen key. The brakes use DOT and we've spec'd them with stainless steel braided lines, so no need for aftermarket hop-ups there. The levers are designed to be used by one or two fingers, and give very good tactile feedback without being overly firm. 

Weight for the front is around 320g with SS lines, and 335g for the rear also with SS lines.