Hope Vision or Cateye

Bruce Thornton

I have to buy a new front light. I'ts a Hope vision1 or a Cateye single shot plus. Has anyone had or got these lights to offer any comments.
Bruce

JonEdwards

Wouldn't get either personally. (although not sure what I would get - probably a Exposure of some variety)

I had a Vision 1 for a while. Great up to a point, but there's no battery indicator, and once the batteries go flat it just turns itself off - you can't even set it to flash as a get you home. You also can't see whether it's on or not when you're riding. I got caught out a few times by this - got home having ridden through central London to find I'd done it with no front light. It's also very big, bulky and heavy for what it is.

Cateye? Not had any of the expensive ones, but have had a large variety of the standard commuter ones (which mostly aren't cheap). They're all great when they're new, but they all fail mechanically fairly quickly. Dry solder joints, water ingress, that kind of thing.

gergusmcbergus

I'd actually disagree with most of the above.
I have a Hope Vision One, and think it is excellent.
It has four beam levels + flash and I find medium and high are more than enough to see on a completely unlit road.
With regards to the cut out, yes it does cut out when it runs out of battery with no prior warning, but in the box it comes with a list of runtimes on each power setting, so as long as you remember roughly how long its been used and on what setting, then charge it up its fine. I've never been caught out with it running out, and don't find it much of an inconvenience remebering roughly how much I've used it.
If you do get it, get some good rechargeable batteries for it to run on.
When I was trying to figure out which one to buy, I narrowed it down to the Vision one and single shot plus and got the Vision one because of the better reviews on Wiggle for the Hope, and I'm glad I got the vision one.

grahamcp

Unless Cateye have re-designed their mounting system, I would advise caution with the Single Shot Plus.

There has been a common fault (just google it) in that the plastic rails that slide onto the bracket break away. sometimes causing the light to come flying off. Mine didn't do that, but it did get quite wobbly.

The flex-tight bracket itself is a useless design because you can't actually get them very tight.

I sent mine back ofter it broke for a refund and have ordered something else.

cougie

Pop over to the MTB buying advice forum and check out their 'what lights' thread.

You can order a Magicshine light for £50 or so from Dealextreme. Its at least twice as powerful as the Vision1.

marin_maniac

Hope 1

Bruce Thornton

Thanks for the comments. I've just ordered the Hope on Wiggle for £62
Bruce

ride_whenever

magicshine.... or a pair of p7 torches

northpole

I had the single shot + which eventually suffered a fatigued mount bracket and flew off under a passing car. Remarkably it survived being driven over but the fundamental flaw in the design was too heavy a unit including battery weighing down on too light duty a slide mount bracket.

I got money back and replaced it with a Hope 2 which was a major improvement.

Peter

orbea-onix

I bought a hope vision 1 and have used it a few times but used it properly last night for a late ride.

On unlight roads it was excelent, cars dipped their lights i could see pot holes and manhole covers easily.

The reason i got the hope light is that it uses normal AA batteries (rechargable or normal) This was the seeling point as if you get a dedicated batt pack and forget to fully charge it your knackered! at least if the light uses AA batts you simply carry a spare set in your pack! so if you are caught out you simply swap batteries! takes 1 minute and your on your way again! now you cant do that with dedictade recharge packs can you!!!!!!!

Pross

Just bought a Fenix L2D torch and lockblock as my main front following previous advice on here - they seem far better value than an equivalent bike specific light.

cougie

Fenix is a great torch - I used mine for most of last winter until I heard of the P7 - that blew it out of the water ! Only thing is that the battery life on max is an hour or so. If you are on decent roads though - the Fenix is pretty good.

andrew_s

gergusmcbergus wrote:

With regards to the cut out, yes it does cut out when it runs out of battery with no prior warning

When it does cut out, you can just turn it back on in a lower setting. You only get stranded when it gets as far as cutting out on low.

JamesB

Great plus point about the Hope is the use of std / rechargeable batteries ---if worried about the sudden cut out carry spare set, and as andrew s says cut out can still leave light functioning on the low setting.
Also can recommend using the Hybrio rechargeable batteries as they have less charge `leakage` when not in use, esp important if you don`t regularly use the lights as I believe regular NiMH / NiCd lose charge at 1-2% per day when not being used

Not Another Hill

I got a Hope Vision 1 this year and have been out on a lot of night rides on completely unlit roads in the middle of nowhere and think its great value. I get 3 hours run time on 2700 rechargeable batteries on max setting. It's bright enough to ride pretty fast and cars do dip their lights. I also have a flashing Electron 1 as a back-up, just in case I misjudge timings. Its never going to be as good as the lights that put out 700+ of lumen but then its significantly cheaper, built well and you'll never have issues with failing charging units and batteries.