MTB lights

[Gooby]

I have narrowed it down to 2 options.
Exposure Six Pack
1925 lumens and 3 hours burn time. I like it because it is one piece and no connectors to screw up but it is quite hefty and has to be mounted on the bars. They are reliable (i know oe person who has had a failure) all my friends run exposure lights.

http://www.exposurelights.com/product/000073/six-p...

Hope R8 LED
2000 lumens abut 1hour 20mins burn on full power on standard batery pack. It can be mounted on your lid. 8 LED's adjustable power and beam config. I am not a fan of remote batteries (bad experiences) but secoundary batteries can be baught and you can have enough light to light up a mountain for ages. If it goes wrong, hope are ledgendary at sorting it out. The problem is my evening rides are getting dark and I need lights soon and Hope wont have them available for about 5 weeks.

http://www.hopetech.com/page.aspx?itemID=SPG321


If the exposure batteries die you have send the whole unit back. The hope will use remote batteries so you can just replace the pack. These 2 manufacturers are sold and supported by local LBS and any problems will be sorted either by LBS or manufacturer.

The wild card is Trout Light Liberator Mk3
Made in a yorkshire shed, these things have a superb reputation. 1700 lumens 3 hour burn time. Over £100 LESS than the other 2 lights. But shed economics define that the service will be a little slower (I dont know this for fact) My Orange comes from a yorkshire shed and I like the products of yorkshire sheds!

http://troutie.com/Products/Detail/Liberator-MKIII

Any ideas / options?

[Jimbo.]

Exposure, although forget the Six Pack and opt for a Maxx-D (handlebars) and Joystick (helmet). Should come in at a similar price to the Six Pack with a bit of "negotiation". Have said same combination myself and it works beautifully.

[F1sh]

Agree about swapping out for a joystick on the lid, but I'd have dual MiNewts on the bars. I used to ride with a joystick and a cateye tripple on the bars.

Fish

[.Adam.]

I went for a Troutelight, and have been very happy with it. I got one of the first batch of Lumen Liberators, and it has been in constant use since and has been faultless. Couldn't recommend it more, and I get the feeling that if anything breaks, then Troutie will be a pleasure to deal with again.

Good value for money, great light!

[shalmaneser]

Jimbo. said:

Exposure, although forget the Six Pack and opt for a Maxx-D (handlebars) and Joystick (helmet). Should come in at a similar price to the Six Pack with a bit of "negotiation". Have said same combination myself and it works beautifully.

Do this every time. The six pack is frankly ridiculous, and the handlebar/headtorch combo works beautifully.

[MattYorke]

I would give a firm thumbs up to anything exposure.

[Gooby]

Has anyone had any problems with a hope light?

[shouldbworking]

Bloody hell thats expensive.

My set of these should arrive tomorrow and based upon night rides with people using them should be ample

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BIKE-CYCLE-RECHARGEABLE-...

[teeCup]

I hire a Exposure Maxx D from my local bike shop which goes on the bars and pair it with a MagicShine(£60 ebay)on my helmet. I have had no problems with the Magicshine and I find it brighter than the Maxx D.
I have been offered the ex hire Maxx D for a good price but will instead be investing the money in a second Magicshine for the bars. The new version has a greatly improved battery life and the build quality has been fine, I have not had any issues.

I would save a fortune and get some Magicshines, at £60 if they get lost/stolen/broken its not the end of the world!

[shouldbworking]

shouldbworking said:

Bloody hell thats expensive.

My set of these should arrive tomorrow and based upon night rides with people using them should be ample

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BIKE-CYCLE-RECHARGEABLE-...

Token update on these - receieved yesterday and taken out on a ride last night.

The torches feel seriously solid. The mounts are really simple but also extremely effective. The extra weight on the head was noticeable for the head torch and I had to adjust the helmet straps slightly. Also low branches were something to be wary of

Both of them were very easy to switch on / off + refocus even in the middle of a descent. I dont think the bar mount one was up to its claimed 900 lumens, it seemed maybe 15% less powerful than the magishine another person was using.

What made up for that and then some is the head mounted one, even with it on a wide beam it gave more than enough light and with the beam focused tightly it was even better. Most of the time it was about halfway between these settings riding in the trees etc.

Can't really comment on battery life as it was only dark for about 45mins of the ride.

[Gooby]

I do have a Lupine Wilma that is currently winging its way back to Germany for some work. I will get the 1100 lumin upgrade. They are going to germany because the UK distributer is such an incompetant bunch of knuckle dragging morons I would rather throw away a £400 light than deal with those s again. (they are that bad).

The lupine gives a superb amount of light but is stratospherically unreliable. It has a beautiful habit of switching off or re-setting half way down a rocky/ bumpy decent and after a few times over the bars (once on my the eve of my birthday, causing me to spend the day in the dentists chair. This was the first ride back after the UK importer had repaired them, if my mouth wasnt swolen and broken, I would have given them plenty of examples of correct use of insults.)

Because this is unreliable, I want to use it as a lid light and mount the second light on the bars.

I have tried the "deal extreme" lights. Though they offer mega power for silly money, the beam spread is not in any way ideal and is focussed as a spot. This is useless for fast trail riding at night. There is nothing better than a big light cannon specifically designed for trail riding with a decent beam spread.

[Fluffsri]

We have the Deal Extreme lights for club members to borrow. Cheap and cheerfull but were finding the opposite they are too much of a flood and not enough spot ???

[AMcLean]

Gooby said:

I have tried the "deal extreme" lights. Though they offer mega power for silly money, the beam spread is not in any way ideal and is focussed as a spot. This is useless for fast trail riding at night.

Do you think they would be any good on the road? I'm looking for some new lights, but for riding predominantly unlit roads. Would the beam be too focused for roads?

Ideally looking for something as cheap as possible. Thought about one of these but would need to get a bracket for it....

http://www.rapidbatteries.com/Ultrafire-WF501B-hig...

Cheers
Alan

[ndg]

I've used the magicshine 836 (I think) on the road, worked fine though I did have to manually dip for oncoming traffic when at speed - to much glare otherwise.

There are probably better road lights around with a shaped beam. There was a thread last winter about some German ones.

N.

[AMcLean]

Came across this set via cycle chat. This looks to be a good price with good reviews.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/ha-iii-ssc-p7-c-sxo-3...

Spotted this too, this looks like a good back up, could be kept in a pocket.....

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/flood-to-throw-zoomin...

Anybody used DealExtreme?

[Gooby]

AMcLean said:

Do you think they would be any good on the road? I'm looking for some new lights, but for riding predominantly unlit roads. Would the beam be too focused for roads?

Ideally looking for something as cheap as possible. Thought about one of these but would need to get a bracket for it....

http://www.rapidbatteries.com/Ultrafire-WF501B-hig...

Cheers
Alan

I try to avoid road riding as much as possible but logically, beam spread is just as important for the road so as to avoid glare for motorists. Personally for the little road time I do, I dont worry and find that most motorists slow down when confronted by a huge light cannon. They can get a little grumpy when you have passed them but hey, too bad...
Beam spread is very important for a MTB. You need to see a wide area of trail and the sides for escape routes and even low branches. You also spend a lot of time turning so you need to see left and right. The optimum set up is light cannon on the bars and light weight light on the lid so it points where you are looking. Also helps for when you have to fix a puncture and you have a hands free light illuminating your work.

So far the only critisim I have heard about the Exposure Six Pack is that it provides so much light it makes you lazy... Sounds good.

[snotrag]

Absolutely - for off road riding the way to do it is to have a wider beam from the handlebars, then a narrower spot on your helmet.

For MTB the helmet is a must, IMO - if you only had one light its better up there than on your lights.

You'll quickly find that on singletrack a bar mounted light is very, very often not pointing up the bit of trail your trying to look at!


The DX 808 lights look great, I'm ordering one of those right now to replace ye olde Night&vision Halogen on the bars.

[CooperS]

Gooby said:

I do have a Lupine Wilma that is currently winging its way back to Germany for some work. I will get the 1100 lumin upgrade. They are going to germany because the UK distributer is such an incompetant bunch of knuckle dragging morons I would rather throw away a £400 light than deal with those s again. (they are that bad).

The lupine gives a superb amount of light but is stratospherically unreliable. It has a beautiful habit of switching off or re-setting half way down a rocky/ bumpy decent and after a few times over the bars (once on my the eve of my birthday, causing me to spend the day in the dentists chair. This was the first ride back after the UK importer had repaired them, if my mouth wasnt swolen and broken, I would have given them plenty of examples of correct use of insults.)

Because this is unreliable, I want to use it as a lid light and mount the second light on the bars.

I have tried the "deal extreme" lights. Though they offer mega power for silly money, the beam spread is not in any way ideal and is focussed as a spot. This is useless for fast trail riding at night. There is nothing better than a big light cannon specifically designed for trail riding with a decent beam spread.

Sadly this is my experience as well..... i'm not sending it back it again i'm going to look at pulling it apart myself.

[ysnnim]

I have used Lumicycle for years, and last winter purchased their LED offering... can't fault it, and came top of the MBR 'what is the best light' comparision (as far as I remember)

Lovely bit of kit...

http://www.lumicycle.com/product/221/led3-xpg-ligh...

[Gooby]

CooperS said:

Sadly this is my experience as well..... i'm not sending it back it again i'm going to look at pulling it apart myself.

Taking apart is quite easy. Ignore the big screw on the bottom with the tamper proof head. This just holds on the securing band and holds down the flex. Go through the lens, it unscrews. The LED's are on a PCB that uses a socket to connect through a heat sink to a couple of wires into the main control PCB (I think this is the source of the unreliability issue). Behind the heat sink there is a large capacitor and a torroid and access to the rear of the control PCB. The control PCB is mainly surface mount so very little you can do there and if the capacitor and torroid are connected they will be hard to test for fault.
My advice is to send back to germany. It can not be worst that the UK Importers who have had 4 tries at fixing mine and are rude and incompetant. I cant name them due to PH policy [coffZYROcoff]