Is my light strong enough?

FODCADEMON

I've been riding for about a year and am now desperate to get out in the night as lots of my friends have been saying its awesome. However I'm not convinced that my current light is strong enough. It has been fine on roads but that was assisted by street lights.
My current light is a cateye HL-EL520 and on the website says that it has a candle power of 1500. Is this enough?

MountainMonster

Why not go out and turn it on and see if it's enough.

The lights are never at the lumens they say they are. Some high rated ones have terrible problems with the spread.

Best to just pop outside for a minute, and walk around with it where there are no lights and see if it works well.

Northwind

That's pretty much a commuting light only. You can ride offroad with very little light, especially if it's a moonlit night but you end up having to tiptoe... Personally I wouldn't.

Jon8a

If you can see by it then it is enough. Try a short local ride and see.

If not I can recommend these

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.44676

Takes a while to arrive but is a very good light for the money. Do some googling and you come up with loads of reviews.

omegas

Go for a short ride and see what its like. It will give a good spread of light , not powerful enough for off road riding.

Steve_F

I will certainly make things interesting.

But, it won't be many years ago that was as bright as anyone was using, probably not as many people out in the forests right enough but there would have been some.

If you can keep up with your mates you can get a lot of info from their lights and where they go but you will get caught out with a lot you don't see and if you loose touch with your mates it will be impossible to catch them again.

cycle monster

Depends where you want to ride. On road it might do, off road it won't. I have been riding for two and a half years. For the first year I knew nothing of night riding. In year two I dismissed such practitioners as nutcases. Having been given a Hope Vision 2 for Christmas I am now completely obsessed with night riding. Budget helmet mounted torch in use and plans for an Exposure joystick in hand.

There are night riding threads aplenty on here. They all sound like flights of fancy at first but borrow a serious light and go out with other loonies and you will be hooked.

Paulkingk

If your friends have some decent lights . just go out with them but stay close to them and keep it simple xc. Thats what we do. By the way i can vouch for the dealextreme light. been running mine for 2 years and it's still going.

unixnerd

I have a slightly more powerful EL-530, it's not nearly enough for off road use.

My current setup is a superb Magicshine MJ-836 (about 90 quid) plus a decent headtorch. A headtorch is a must. Not only does it give you a second light in case the main one runs out of power or develops a fault, but it lets you look around the bike at you gear selection or work on punctures more easily. Having just one light is a recipe for disaster. I always carry spare AA batteries for the headtorch too.

I used to have a 10W Halogen system with a big nicad battery that went in my water bottle holder + the EL-530 as a spotlight. This wasn't as bright as my current gear but worked. You can get those older lights very cheaply on ebay, I sold mine for 25 quid.

Night riding is great fun, but invest a few pennies in decent lights. Dim lights just slow you down, you can't see far enough ahead to travel at a good speed.