Thinking of buying these lights

Dennis1971

I am looking into some lights for my commute to work. Partial lit and partially country roads with reduced or no lighting.

Front: Electron Terra 1 Front Light - Li Ion light

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/ele ... t-ec024178

Rear: CatEye TL-LD 1100 Rear Light

http://www.cyclexpress.co.uk/products/T ... r_LED.aspx

Any problems with these, like. dislkike, alternatives. Let me know what you think.

Thanks
Dennis

scruffyduncan

Do you need the long run time?

If you can settle for a bit less there are much better lights for the money. Check out magicshine or wonderlight lights, they cost around the same, are MUCH more powerful and are available from UK stockists with warranty and back up. They will run on low (still more powerful than that light on high) for 6 hours between charges.

If you want a bargain you could get something off the internet from china that would probably be as good and cost half the amount, but you may have to wait / have problems with returns etc.

cyberknight

120 lumens for a completely unlit road is going to be a bit low to cycle at full pace.

I run 2 lights of at least that power for my commute, from deal extreme( an importer from hong kong so they take a couple of weeks to come) that cost me about a tenner each.

Waiting on one of these....
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.14909

Twice the power of your light for £11 but only lasts 2 hours so i will need to change the rechargeable batteries i use twice a week or so on top of the lights i normally use.

If you want a light quick maybe look at a hope vision 1
http://www.winstanleysbikes.co.uk/produ ... _Light_Kit

or maybe

fenix flashlight

http://www.fenixtorch.co.uk/led_torches/fenix-ld40.html

on a mount
http://www.fenixtorch.co.uk/led_torches/lockblock.html

Underscore

cyberknight wrote:

120 lumens for a completely unlit road is going to be a bit low to cycle at full pace.

+1 - though it might depend on how well you know your route. Mine has recently changed so I know it reasonably well but not intimately, and find that 180 lumens on my helmet and 280 on the bars is fine on flat-ish, unlit country roads, where I'm cruising at 18-22 mph. For steeper downhills at 30+, it is barely enough.

_

shouldbeinbed

Dennis1971 wrote:

I am looking into some lights for my commute to work. Partial lit and partially country roads with reduced or no lighting.

just bought a Hope Vision 1 this week for exactly this type or fiding and a couple of mile through a completely unlit treey country park. I can ride at 90% of normal daylight pace already.

Kieran_Burns

The Hope Vision 2 allows for no slow down 8) (not that I'm that quick anyway...)

As to the rear light: the LD1100 is an excellent light, but i will always recommend having two lights, front and rear - I've paired my LD1100 with a LD610 - the 610 on flash and both banks of the 1100 on steady

ride_whenever

You certainly want two lights, one on the head and one on the bars to give better field of depth and improve pothole judging ability.

I tend to run 230 lumen on the bars and 900 on my helmet, but that's for off-roading. You could probably get away with 100-200 on each for road riding.

On the rear you want at least one 1/2watt, ideally the RSP double 1/2 watt which is bonkers and a steady, reasonably bright backup. Plenty of reflective tape and possibly a couple of fibreflairs and monkeylectrics.

jeremyrundle

I still say you need to buy one of these and don't pre judge, perhaps cheap but we now have ten for Christmas presents, they are as good as they say, and anyway you can always send it back if you don't believe it is as bright as they say, believe me it is very bright.

I also bought the revolution light tested here £20, from Ed. Cycles, then found the identical ones, from abroad, 1w and 3w for £5 in. postage, without the logo, pays to check.

Try one, before spending a fortune.

regards

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/17-Watt-CREE-W-LE ... 3efc8d88c6

And they are CREE chips, not LEDs.

cyberknight

+1 on the branding...

http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/ebwPNLq ... 152c003247

£20

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.18307

£5 ish , same light unbranded

jeremyrundle

That is it exactly, I bought both, spot the difference, I can't, also 3w are available for £5 on ebay.

Now I look before I buy anything, people pay for a name these days too fast.

Perhaps Bike Radar should spend £50ish buying ten "cheap" lights and see what is available, we see £300+ lights here, WHY, look abroad.

I will stick my neck out but I bet I could place a cheap light about £20 £30 at most against a £300 light and no one looking at the "lighting" and not the bike or light would be able to say which was which.

Initialised

cyberknight wrote:

+1 on the branding...

http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/ebwPNLq ... 152c003247

£20

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.18307

£5 ish , same light unbranded

I picked one of them up for £5.99 1W bike light from ParkerTools and strapped it to my helmet. Seems to be the same model but Rolson Branded:



I wont get to test it in anger for a week or so but it seems bright enough.

On unbranded stuff try http://www.bestofferbuy.com/ as well as dealextreme

zanes

jeremyrundle wrote:

I still say you need to buy one of these and don't pre judge, perhaps cheap but we now have ten for Christmas presents, they are as good as they say, and anyway you can always send it back if you don't believe it is as bright as they say, believe me it is very bright.

I also bought the revolution light tested here £20, from Ed. Cycles, then found the identical ones, from abroad, 1w and 3w for £5 in. postage, without the logo, pays to check.

Try one, before spending a fortune.

regards

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/17-Watt-CREE-W-LE ... 3efc8d88c6

And they are CREE chips, not LEDs.

a) Cree, of course, being a maker of LEDs*

b) 17W from 3xAAAs? If that's true they will last under 20mins/set then, ignoring losses.

*Who don't appear to actually make a 17watt LED. Equally, according to a quick google and poke around the usual suspects websites, no one else does in a single package. That ebay link appears to show a single package LED in the torch,

unixnerd

Get the new MJ-836 version of the Magicshine, stunning value and a superb light. Very long battery life and not too heavy.

ride_whenever

but the 1 and 3 watt are nowhere near as bright as the xpg based led torches.

A p7 will put out a claimed 900 lumens, a 3w is usually closer to 60. You can pick up a p7 for 40-60quid including charger and spare batteries. The wait time is the only issue, but you can source them from the uk for a little bit more, usually 70-80 quid and the light is significantly brighter.

If you really want to learn about lighting rather than spieling off your own balls, head over to the MTB forum and read the old/new what lights thread. Even my old tk11 pissed all over the 3 and 1w torches you demonstrate to, once you've tried proper lights (which needn't be expensive) you'll realise how much slower you're going with the 1w and 3w ones.

It does however seem pretty fast at the time because the very small pool of light you're projecting 10m down the road gives you pod-racer style vision.

Initialised

jeremyrundle wrote:

Perhaps Bike Radar should spend £50ish buying ten "cheap" lights and see what is available., we see £300+ lights here, WHY, look abroad.

There's a fundamental problem with that concept. Magazines rely on advertising revenue from the companies that can afford to buy advertising by selling at high margin. The bottom line is that a site isn't going to question the credibility of the advertisers it relies on by publishing contradictory data.

jeremyrundle wrote:

I will stick my neck out but I bet I could place a cheap light about £20 £30 at most against a £300 light and no one looking at the "lighting" and not the bike or light would be able to say which was which.

When I have to ride in the dark I will pitch my Cateye EL530 (£35 if you shop around £55 @ EDC, 57% LBS cartel mark-up) against my 1W (£6 @ Parkertools, £20 @ EDC, 333% LBS cartel mark up) and see if my performance or visibility is impaired. I'd expect an array of cheap lights is probably better than one expensive one so maybe test 4x£6 (two forward, two angled down for close vision lights against one £80 light as well.

By the logic of that mark up, a branded £200 unit may well be equalled by a £60 product. I see it in my field (PC Tech) and it seems more exaggerated in the bike gear market. Presumably because it is currently subsidised and serving a largely affluent demographic (for now).

As with anything, you can buy cheap crap that fails and needs replacing too soon or you can buy overpriced stuff that performs marginally better than something or you can pay over the odds for a badge or affiliation. What you should get is a sigmoid curve of performance as a function of price where you should buy is the middle, linear section between the underpowered and the overpriced (probably the £50-80 bracket TBH).

LED tech is on the march so we are in a period where year on year LED based lighting systems should drop in price for a given performance or rise in performance for a given price so of course there will be overpriced legacy stock which was good at the time of release floating around so shops wont want to sell it at a loss and then there's the government subsidy...

jeremyrundle

ride_whenever wrote:

If you really want to learn about lighting rather than spieling off your own balls, head over to the MTB forum and read the old/new what lights thread. Even my old tk11 pissed all over the 3 and 1w torches you demonstrate to, once you've tried proper lights (which needn't be expensive) you'll realise how much slower you're going with the 1w and 3w ones.

It does however seem pretty fast at the time because the very small pool of light you're projecting 10m down the road gives you pod-racer style vision.

Why do some people have to resort to rudeness on forums, and rude words and abuse?

And so what about "much slower you're going with the 1w and 3w ones" I am fifty and could not care less about speed, I want to get there in safety and be seen, a "FORUM" is a place to exchange views, not be abusive to others.

Ride-whenever, as I said I have many LED Lenser torches, four in fact to the P14 and you are right, they are SUPERB, just wish I could mount the P14 on the bike.

As for Initiaklised's comments, could not agree more with what you say.

cougie

You could fit a lockblock on the bars and then you can ride with your Lenser Torch.

cougie

I'd not bother with that ebay torch though - just go for the P7 - you really wont regret it.

AAA batteries arent big enough to give you the power you need.

jeremyrundle

Cougie

The only concern I would have is that if I lose a £7 5w light I dont care, if i lose or damage (is the lenser waterproof) a Lenser I would care.

Also I park my bike up with everything on it, if a cheap few torches go, oh well, but I cant be bothered to take them off each time.

Mind you unlike most cyclists I leave mine in Tavistock square, probably wouldn't where most others park.