UK review
Hi Ayup.
I’m not the best MTB’er in the world and it’s unlikely that I will ever be. I ride for “s%@ts and giggles” as we call it. However I got invited to be part of a team at the Bontrager TwentyFour12 Endurance event which meant upgrading my 4 year old Kona, getting some lights and for the first time buying a helmet. (Which I found out later was a damn good idea)
After blowing my entire budget on a Yeti 575, and then being forced to buy what was the most manliest helmet I could find. I was faced with getting some lights.
Of course being in the UK I started down the exposure route, then the Hope route (I didn’t fancy changing my stem) Looked at the cateyes, then got confused and asked a mate who races for some help. He said Ayup and I said I thought you were from Bolton not Leeds. He went no ya fool get some “Ayup lights” he’d tried all the others and had found these were brilliant. He then went onto show me how good they were and then dropped them into a bucket of muddy water whilst they were switched on to show me they were waterproof. As they shone through the murky water he said you won’t get that with the exposure ones. It took them 4 joysticks and a couple of maxx ones for them to finally admit they weren’t waterproof, and they’d only been out in the rain. So on such a recommendation I did what I could to order them. I was bit gutted to find the uk place was no more. But nevertheless I order from your Australian site and they were here within days. . . complete with a bill from the UK govt pay up or we break your legs taxation dept. but still the whole price was less than it would have cost me to purchase an exposure unit. Not only that I got 2 sets of lights and 3 batteries 2 x 3hrs and a 6 hr.
So the weekend just gone was the Endurance race. We were a team of 6 and competing just for fun. Exposure heavily sponsor the event and were offering a discount to anyone who wanted to buy some lights. So I was the only one on our team with Ayup’s. I was also the only person on our team who was still riding at 2 o’clock in the morning. After one lap everyone else’s lights were on charge in the exposure tent. One of our team halfway round didn’t see an object on the trail and as a result stacked his bike and went down so hard his BELL helmet broke in several places. So he couldn’t race. Another guy went out and came back 20 minutes later saying he couldn’t see squat. And so I took up the reigns, did a couple of laps so the others could get their light charged, and or the sun came up.
I have to say whilst riding around, my skill with a bike on a course is rubbish, I’m just starting out. But in the dark I could catch and overtake other riders that in the daylight left me for dust. So the lights helped me feel a little bit better then I was.
It was also good to see the Yeti team riders had Ayups on. I felt even more special then. Unfortunately I’m not as good as them, and I have a bigger belly but still. I felt like I’d made a brilliant decision to go for the Ayups.
So my apologies for the longwinded email. I just wanted to say thanks, and tell you how well they have performed compared to your competitors. Even those that were sponsoring the event. I get the feeling that if everyone was using Ayup’s they wouldn’t have needed a charging tent 🙂
So utterly brilliant lights, the confidence and light they give honestly had me riding at the same speed I was riding in the daytime. And I can see why my mate swear by them, and why he uses them for his endurance xc events.
So thanks for everything and hope the feedback is of some use somewhere along the line.
Best Regards
