A light I can see with!!!

ThatGuyOnABike

i suggest you try to get a head lamp onto your helmet or if no helmet just get a headlamp. they are cheaper compared to cycle lights with similar power, thats what i've found anyway. go to blacks and get something around £30-40. or there is an accessory for mag lite torches that can make it go on the handlebar. but keep the cateye for visability, you need something extra to pierce the dark and trust me go for something not cycle related and you can save money. headlamp is my suggestion.
http://www.blacks.co.uk/Outdoor-Essenti ... 10572.aspx
check this out, one of my friends uses something similar

fluff.

Some good info in here:

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... t=12555337

Abridged version: LED torches make very good, cheap lights.

CrookedCucumber

I'm pretty happy with my Cateye single-shot (the 1-watt version). It's normally very expensive (about £70, as I recall) but I was able to get a second-hand one from eBay much cheaper. The only problem is that the battery life is only about two hours on full beam. Low beam is OK for around town, but I find that I need the full beam on unlit roads.

doyler78

I got Ayup lights for last year's commute and they are excellent. They are bright, lightweight, compact and come with a 6 hour battery. All I could ask for and cost me nearly £150 however I didn't want a brick on my bike that took up a bottle cage and have a light which was prone to blowing halfway home. You can get cheaper alternatives however there are trade offs to be made in having them.

I think you are quite right to focus on the quality of light as this is the most important thing so whatever you do decide ask specifically about that product to gain a wider range of views on it before buying as a general query here is unlikely to gain specific counter arguments to a particular model. What's good for one person may not necessarily work for the rest of us.

kevingattaca

What about these ?;


http://www.dealextreme.com/search.dx/search.bike

The products come from Hong Kong ( so does take time to get to you ) the cost is in dollars so just divide by two to get a rough price, and try NOT to buy in excess of £17 or else you'll be taxed

I have used the company a LOT before, and although the postage is slow the items are VERY good value

K

chuckcork

I was cycling around 14km home last winter several nights a week, in all I must have done in excess of 1500km in darkness/semidarkness I think? The LED lights I was using previously in streetlights in London were nowhere good enough for that kind of distance/length of time I found (early enough in October) and the battery on a 9V set I had was running out too often for safety, so I checked my bank balance first and went for a SON dynamo hub, built into a wheel with a decent enough rim, and then added on a Busch + Muller front and rear light.

That wasn't enough and I also then bought a Schmidt E6 halogen, and for safety's sake was riding with an additional battery LED for the rear and a Petzl type light on the helmet, so if the dynamo went (had some trouble with wiring I think in early March) I wouldn't be completely in the dark. Plus-side you can also change a tube hands free when the inevitable happens.

No completely satisfied with the setup though as when raining you need all the light you can get, the road just seems to absorb it, so will be looking at adding another E6 (if I have a job of course, with the way the Irish econmoy is going)

No cheap though, came in at around £400 for the dynamo set up, but that was at the gold plated end, you can get a Shimano hub into a wheel for half that, and less expensive lights.

Biggest problem after the cost was mounting the lights as the standard mounting fittings are not designed for oversized bars, or for road bikes with high pressure tyres. Took a lot of trial and error (mostly error) before I found cable ties with pretty much any kind of bracket you can strap a light securely to, to be the answer.

HTH.