XC lighting help

K88 MUD

Hi all

As the nights are drawing in the local woods that i spend some hours in are getting a bit dark so.........Can anyone shed some light (sorry) on what is a good light for the said use.
Would like something that will last and is rechargeable if possable.

Cheers

ddraver

ay ups -

-2 for the price of one (Headtorch makes a huge differnce as you can look round corners
-longest run time at 6 hrs each
-250 each

but you'll buy the 4 LED hope one instead.....

Bmjboy

Ive just bought the Niteflux Photon MAX system.

Silly amount of light for £150.

Rechargable, variable settings, very sturdy.

Cheaper than the Hope 4 LED.

Dilker

I use a set from Lumicycle.

http://www.lumicycle.com/Product/Produc ... =1&dep=104

Quality light at a good price... There is another thread with some suggestions...

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... t=12581089

K88 MUD

Cheers guys,..........that gives me a few to look at

ddraver

Sorry thats 250 a set for the ayups - 250 for both lights, batteries fitting paraphenalia etc etc

paggnr

AY-UPS - I use them for 24hr racing. Get the medium beam for the bars and the narrow beam for the helmet.

I cannot recommend highly enough the benefits of having a light on your helmet if you want to go fast.

clanton

I personally would recommend USE exposure lights - excellent lights, bright, fantastic service.

K88 MUD

paggnr wrote:

AY-UPS - I use them for 24hr racing. Get the medium beam for the bars and the narrow beam for the helmet.

I cannot recommend highly enough the benefits of having a light on your helmet if you want to go fast.

Any links to these please.

davetwin

Quick search on yahoo;

http://www.ayuplights.co.uk/

K88 MUD

davetwin wrote:

Quick search on yahoo;

http://www.ayuplights.co.uk/

Cheers for that.........they are a nice set-up

K88 MUD

Thanks for the reply's people............but does anyone have any points to make on these http://www.rutlandcycling.com/7644/Knog-Gator-605-Front-Light.html.
My LBS has them in stock but at a little more than this price.

Dilker

Try this... website is full of reviews for most products.

http://www.mtbr.com/cat/accessories/lig ... 30crx.aspx

K88 MUD

K88 MUD wrote:

Thanks for the reply's people............but does anyone have any points to make on these http://www.rutlandcycling.com/7644/Knog-Gator-605-Front-Light.html.
My LBS has them in stock but at a little more than this price.

Has anyone got a picture of these fitted to there bike please.

Anonymous

Review

K88 MUD

M.Cole wrote:

Review

Thanks for the link M.Cole..........didnt even know these were here.............still finding my way round.

mountainroadie

can i just say to anyone thinking about getting lights look at hopes vision two rechargeables ive had comments from workmates that the powerfull light they emit looks like a motorbike on full beam .good for startling deer too :shock:

Northwind

Pair of Dealextreme P7 torches. Under £100 for 2, 600 lumens each, good wide beam, tough,and replacable batteries so all the battery life you will ever need. Better light output than most of the lights being mentioned here, for less money. One on the head, one on the bars, sorted. I've not compared them with every light being mentioned here but Ay-ups and Vision 2s are just plain beaten. The Ay-ups give a better light but much less of it, so their advantage is lost.

The only downers are fitment- which takes a wee bit of thinking over, but isn't difficult- and having to change batteries as they only last an hour and 10 minutes on full power. But the plus side of this is of course you can choose your burn time just by carrying extra batteries, they're not expensive and they're compact. If you never stop riding it'd be a pain but most people will be off the bike at least once an hour anyway, I just change over at a rest stop. And they're the only high performance light I know of that can genuinely do a through-the-night on full power, for this reason- need to run 8 hours? Buy more batteries.

Right now, personally I think it's incredibly hard to justify spending money on a "proper" bike light, they used to deliver a performance advantage but now that's not the case. Everything else that I've compared them with falls short on performance, burn time or cost, or some combination of the three.

mountainroadie

my mate has ay-ups and they do have more lumen power but when you compare the two side by side the hope vision 2 takes the crown also take into consideration the hopes build ,waterproof.and after sales service and you have a winner ........ :P

Northwind

Nah, don't agree with that, the Vision 2's a nice unit and Hope's customer service is pretty much flawless but the light itself isn't bright enough, and it has a pretty poor burn time. Just a wee bit behind the curve in its choice of LED really. A mate of mine uses a Vision 2 and a Joystick and the output and throw is worse than my 2 torches, and the 2 of those cost less than either of his 2 lights.

mountainroadie

i had a look at the two {torches} look at the middle of your beam and ask yourself if you can pick out objects on the ground clearly . its about an even spread of light not about how bright it is if that was the case id go for a lupine betty 6 or a busch and muller . by the way a roadie mate of mine has a lupine wilma and its only slightly better than the hope vision twos . but there is a big price difference . burn time is fine i have 2 batteries (endurance pack)

Northwind

mountainroadie wrote:

i had a look at the two {torches} look at the middle of your beam and ask yourself if you can pick out objects on the ground clearly .

Yes, absolutely- and better than is possible with the Hope. (we've swapped and used them back to back on rides) I'm wondering, have you actually seen these in action or used one? From your comment do you think the centre is duller? It's not at all, the torches basically act like a combined flood and spot. The centre is the brightest, and gives superb visibility. The donut is less bright, and a bit less effective than the Hope if you use only 1 torch, but better if you use 2. Note that I don't say "Brighter"- I suspect that the single torch is actually brighter in terms of pure power, but the hot spot in the middle reduces the actual effectiveness of the flood, it needs the fill from the second torch to actually beat the Hope in terms of effectiveness instead of just numbers. If you have to use only one light, the Hope wins, but the point is that 1 Hope costs more than 2 torches. 3 torches in fact!

The only disadvantage I've seen from my comparisons is that the brighter light can be slightly glarey, I've had moments of bounceback from wet surfaces, but it's a minor problem. The Hope does have a fantastic beam pattern, it's pretty flawless, but that's not all that useful when it doesn't light that beam as much. The ideal light will combine the two.

When they can match the construction quality and beam quality with a better light output, then it'll be a storming light. I'm not sure why they haven't already, probably clearing old stock I imagine. Or maybe they've seen that people will still keep buying the product anyway? A brighter emitter will sort the run time problem too, since it'll make the lower power modes more effective. I might buy that light... Sooner or later there's bound to be a compact light from Hope and Ayup with a more powerful emitter that'll combine the raw power of the torches with the finesse of the proper lights, but right now they've fallen behind.

(I had a wee giggle when you said "Burn time isn't a problem, I've got 2 batteries". It's precisely BECAUSE burn time's a problem that you need 2 batteries, same as with the torches! Just that your extra battery usually costs about £50, while mine cost £10 to run both for the same extra lifespan. We both run into the same problem, and we both get round it the same way, but it costs more to do it with the Hope)

mountainroadie

no i dont think the centre is duller just the opposite to bright in the middle too bright that you cannot pick out objects... but i am only going by the web screenshots .im confused when you talk about the RAW POWER of your torches they run on lr6 batteries dont they ?how do you attach them to your helmet and handlebars . PICS WOULD BE GREAT i have never used the secondary battery so have stopped carrying it . get a good 3 hours on full beam but i am never on full beam all the time . i was toying with the idea of getting the vision 4 but after seeing what the vision 2 is capable off i can only imagine what a immense light the vision 4 is

ride_whenever

busch and muller do some awesome dyanmo lights, they are basically the same light as a schmidt, but at a fraction of the cost.

mountainroadie

yeah they do a serious high end light too that is illiegal to use in britain how cool is that

canada16

My fenix puts out more power than the joystick max and at 50.00 less than half the price.

Easy to charge

Or get the P7 as described before.

I will never buy bike lights only torches now, and they look fine on handlebars

Northwind

mountainroadie wrote:

no i dont think the centre is duller just the opposite to bright in the middle too bright that you cannot pick out objects... but i am only going by the web screenshots .im confused when you talk about the RAW POWER of your torches they run on lr6 batteries dont they ?how do you attach them to your helmet and handlebars

Sorry, I missed this one when it posted up for some reason. The P7s don't run on AAs, at least mine don't though some do- these run on one 2500ma Li-po 3.6V battery similiar to those used for radio controlled cars. You're absolutely right to expect nothing great from an AA or AAA-powered light though. The brightness isn't a negative thing, though I can understand why it can seem that way, photos can deceive a bit.

For helmet mount, I use a wee bit of velcro and 2 official Royal Mail red rubber bands But your helmet may vary of course. Works well though. There's other ways, some like o-rings for a more professional look. I like cheap On the bars, I use the mount off a cheap commuter light (£2 from CRC) combined with a jubilee clip (£1), which gives it a quick release and very solid mount. You could equally use 2 jubilee clips for a permanent mount.





(these photos show my old tesco cree torches, I still use one of these on my commuter but they just weren't up to scratch for MTB use, either too spotlightey with the collimator in, or too weak with it out. But of course the mounting is the same with any torch. The old Tesco torch thread has lots of nice mounting options.)

There's also now a feller on MTB Britain who's started manufacturing a dummy cell and multiple battery pack for these- you fit the dummy cell in the torch and cut a hole in the casing, which enables you to run up to 4 of the 18650 lipo cells, and also to double up and overvolt to 7.2V, or to run a different pack (radio controlled car pack, or maybe one of thorsten durbahn's lipo motorbike batteries if you want genuine all-night high power performance, basically whatever you want). These are ACE but it does ramp the price up. Still, I suppose a pair of these at 7.2V with a 4-cell battery pack each would give phenomenal lighting with 2-and-a-half hours burn even on full, ridiculous power. (the numbers I've seen say 950 lumens each at 7.2V, and the flood's really filled out) Unless they melt I've not tried any of these though.

mountainroadie

well done its cause of guys like northwind we have great inventors

Northwind

Nah, because I stole the idea from someone else

cougie

+1 for the P7 torches. Why spend £100s for the sake of a quick battery swap every hour or so. One on the bars is amazing - bung another on the helmet and you'll scare the bejesus out of every woodland creature !

skavanagh.bikeradar

This is great stuff, but as I'm a road rider and some of that is in town, has anyone got a recommendation along similar lines that has at least a couple of modes to allow for being in town? Once out of town I'm on unlit country roads.

I was originally looking at the Hope Vision 1w LED (2009) which claims 240 lumens (enough for unlit road riding I would have thought) and a burn time even on max of 2h 45min. It takes 4x AA batteries - any ideas on the best options there?

Essentially I want to match or beat the Hope for a fraction of the price..................