Lights!

[Chris71]

So, the nights are drawing in. A decent ride after work will soon be difficult for another 4 or 5 months

And as with the past few years I've said I'm going to buy some lights and stay fit through the winter. Well, this time I am going to do it!!!

So - PHers - tell me all you know about MTB lights

I'm looking for something that gives reasonable illumination for a couple of hours off road riding. It will also need to cope with a 10 minute road journey out to the trails (well lit and low speed, but busy, so I need to be visible!) Can anyone recommend a certain setup? Whats involved in fitting them? How are the batterys usually mounted? How are they recharged?

Is this sort of thing addequate for offroad riding?

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/ProductDetail.aspx?Cat=cyc...

[Minnsy]

Here might be a good start... http://pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t...

And for unbiased advice, lumicycle (cos its what I've got)

[Chris71]

Yep, since discovered the Lumicycle site. Was thinking of something like this,

http://www.lumicycle.com/Product/product2.aspx?pro...

Mounted on the bars, plus a decent tail light for whilst I'm on the road.

The big debate for me is whether to go bar mounted or head mounted. I thought having a head mounted light flying around all over the place would be disorientating, but the majority of people on the other thread seemed to think they were better.

I think either route I'm likely to do is fairly well lit on the roads (only 10 mins to the woods) and from then on it's not likely to be stupidly fast or especially technical - sadly we just don't have that sort of terrain round here. The only thing is making sure I go to atleast one side (preferably the correct one) of an approaching tree!

[pdV6]

Well, if your budget is at that level then there are any number of options.
Don't just dive in and buy the first one you see - take a few moments to figure out what you want from the light (brightness, runtime, weight etc) and then see what's available.

[Chris71]

As with all these things I could spend silly money on it, but based on what I've seen so far I reckon I can set an absolute maximum of £300 preferably less.

It's not 50mph downhill, so I don't need to turn night into day, it is however still singletrack stuff with plenty of trees to collide with, so I need something reasonably bright.

I'm not a racer or even a serious weekend warrior, it's just that I've only just recovered my fitness from having a long break over last winter Want something to keep me in basic shape. So I reckon 2 hours would be addequate for runtime most of the time and weight isn't especially critical - I'm not interested in setting times. You could even argue more weight would be good!

Besides the above, the other things I want are - rock solid attachment (be it to the frame or to my head!), waterproof, durable and generally reliable and idiot proof.

[pdV6]

Given those parameters, you still have a wide selection of decent lights to choose from.

Exposure Joystick £125
L&M Vega £135
Hope Vision LED £155
Hope Vision LED Enduro £190
L&M Stella £200
Smart HID £220
Exposure Enduro Turbo £237
Lupine Passubio XL £238
Hope Vision HID £240
Exposure Enduro Maxx £270
NiteRider TriNewt £270
NiteRider Firestorm £300
Lumicycle Halide £300
L&M ARC £310

Edited by pdV6 on Monday 1st October 16:14

[Minnsy]

As to Bar vrs Helmet (that's crash helmet...) Bars absolutely. For that money you get some serious illumination! I spent around £200 and have li-ion lumicycle with twin lamps - both running 20w 12degree. One aimed 20 feet in front, one about 45 feet in front. Colleague has the Lumi Halide - ridiculous amount of light.

I'm sure the others mentioned are equally good/tough - at that sort of money you are guaranteed to light up the tree (you are about to hit!)

And night riding (especially single track) is a real blast!

Have fun..

Edited by Minnsy on Monday 1st October 20:35

[JPJ]

That rear light that you highlighted on thw wiggle site is excellent, but as you've now heard, the front isn't very special in comparison to the Lumicycle or similar offerings. It might still be worth buying the twin pack though depending on the price of the rear light on it's own, as it's a handy light to be seen by, but doesn't create enough light to see the road in unlit streets.

[Chris71]

Ok, got a set!

Was literally passing LumiCycle today on the way back from a friends house on the south coast, so I popped in.

They have to be one of the nicest, most enthusiastic companies I've dealt with. I was there for something like an hour discussing everything! I came away with a set comprising of,

20W halogen flood
12W halogen spot (or are those the other way round? )
Mid range Li-ion frame mounted battery pack
Quick release handlebar mounts

Got the lights rigged on the bike and the battery is on charge, gonna try them shortly!

[Black5]

Could I ask how much you spent?

[Chris71]

I think it came to £199 in the end.

Took them out last night for a quick blast. My observations.....

• Very easy to setup, Chris-proof even
• Everything stayed in position, thought I'd be manically cable tying but I didn't need anything other than the clamps and the velcro strap for the battery bag and it stayed put.
• Light - I should stress I didn't spend very long at all setting up the two beams, so it was probably far from optimum. As it was the light was addequate, but certainly not the fabled 'night into day' that you're alleged to get with halides. I rode the (relatively tame) down hill sections with both lamps on. Suspect better beam positioning would sort some of that.
• Lamp positioning - I found the bar positioning very good. It gives excellent contrast over dips and drops (more so that daylight arguably) the steered angle on the bars was enough to light you round corners without a headtorch and surprisingly even over a fairly heavily rooted trail, the lit area remained very steady. I expected it to bounce around disconcertingly with the forks, but it stayed remarkably stable.

I only went out for an hour, so battery life obviously isn't an issue. The guy at Lumicycle estimated somewhat over 2 hours with both lights on and up to 4 with just the spot. The only slight bad point I could find was the switches are a bit fiddly with riding gloves on, so I had to stop to switch them on or off. On the whole, I'm very impressed - it's more than addequate to keep me riding over the winter.

Speaking of which [O/T] - I felt very sick when I got back last night. It seems I made the oldest mistake in the book and didn't wrap up warm enough, my stomach, arms etc were freezing, but head and the part of my back covered by the rucksack were freezing. Think I'll be grabbing a sweatshirt for tonight!

[Moose.]

Chris71 said:

20W halogen flood
12W halogen spot (or are those the other way round? )
Mid range Li-ion frame mounted battery pack
Quick release handlebar mounts

I have this exact setup! Bloody brilliant, it's like riding in the day time I'd say it's slight brighter than some HID setups and gives a nicer light. HIDs seem to be a bit too "cold".

[pdV6]

Moose. said:

HIDs seem to be a bit too "cold".

You'd probably like the L&M ARC HID that Neil has, then; it has a definite yellow tinge that looks far more like a halogen, with the usual HID advantage of oodles more light than halogens of that spec provide. Pricey, though.

[Chris71]

Moose. said:

Chris71 said:

20W halogen flood
12W halogen spot (or are those the other way round? )
Mid range Li-ion frame mounted battery pack
Quick release handlebar mounts

I have this exact setup! Bloody brilliant, it's like riding in the day time I'd say it's slight brighter than some HID setups and gives a nicer light. HIDs seem to be a bit too "cold".

Where (rouighly) do you aim the beams? Mine certainly isn't like riding in the day, but as mentioned above, I don't think the two beams are complimenting each other at the moment.

[pdV6]

The spot ought to be pointed down the trail to let you know what's coming up and the flood should be much closer to really light up the ground directly in front and to the sides.

[Moose.]

Just re-read you've post and realised you've got a 12W spot and 20W flood. I've got a 12w spot aimed up the trail and a 20W mid (17 degree beam) which lights up everything a little closer in. In fact the mid is so good, I'm not sure I really need the spot. Might see if I can fit it to my helmet for this winter as an experiment.

Edited by Moose. on Friday 5th October 12:06

[Chris71]

pdV6 said:

The spot ought to be pointed down the trail to let you know what's coming up and the flood should be much closer to really light up the ground directly in front and to the sides.

I've got that already broadly speaking, but I got the impression the two beams were either too close together or too far apart the whole time.

Could you give me an idea how far in front of the bike you aim both lights? My flood seemed ok, but looking back I wonder if it was a bit too low (near) maybe I could have raised it a little and got even more range with the spot.

Apparently I have:

Li-Ion System 2006 Two Lamps 0.00 0.00 0.0012
Spot Black LRG(12 Watt Spot (8&#176,
Flood Black LRG(20 Watt Flood (30&#176,
Li-Ion Fast Charger UK 240v (3-Pin)(Li-Io 25.52 4.47 29.99
Pro Bag 1 Lead with extra Y(Pro 4.4 Amp/h 97.87 17.13 115.00

(and leads - have the battery pack mounted on the top tube, then a single lead going to the stem where it goes into a Y lead powering the two lights - excess cable bound up in the velcro strap, no further fixings neede)

[pdV6]

Experiment is the only way.

Maybe Lumicycle will let you swap the halogens in for a halide lamp if you're not getting enough light from the setup they sold you?

[Chris71]

I wouldn't say the light was insufficient - I'm just wheezing round some flat singletrack, there isn't much fast or technical riding involved, I was just slightly surprised from all the reviews that they weren't brighter still.

I thought about this at some length yesterday and concluded the battery was the big investment and if I'm still riding regularly at night by Christmas I might upgrade to halides. I'm not sure it's really necessary though - we'll see.

Besides, half the fun is the novelty of night riding, wouldn't want to make it *too* good

[Gazzab]

Light and motion HID Li-ion ! Top lights. £400 plus in UK but about £200 via ebay from the states. Night = day.