Lights for riding in the very dark

wytco0

I am looking for some advice of lights suitable for riding on remote country lanes when it is very dark, I need something that will allow me to see the road well enough to ride at normal speeds when there is no other light available.

Max ride time will be about 3 hours.

Does anyone have any experience of lights used in similar circumstances who could help me create a shortlist?

Thanks

Grill

Exposure lights will sort you right out. I use the MaxxD and even on less than half setting it's too bright.

Ouija

There's a big thread about this..... Cree XML emitters are the brightest at the moment, any one of which will light up the road enough to allow you to see very clearly in pitch black. The only question is... how many emitters do you want in your light and weather you want an all in one unit (such as torches and a handlebar mount) or seperates (head unit attached to handlebar but battery pack mounted elsewhere on the bike).

For riding down country lanes, you only really need the one emitter, preferably with a more focused spot type beam. For rougher stuff, multple emitters with a wider, floodier, beam pattern is preferred.

carrock

Grill wrote:

Exposure lights will sort you right out. I use the MaxxD and even on less than half setting it's too bright.

Yes. I have used a Diablo for the past 2 years- the quality is staggeringly good, it is light and bright.

Of course, someone will be along to say that a £40 made in china light uses the same LED....

Grill

carrock wrote:

Grill wrote:

Exposure lights will sort you right out. I use the MaxxD and even on less than half setting it's too bright.

Yes. I have used a Diablo for the past 2 years- the quality is staggeringly good, it is light and bright.

Of course, someone will be along to say that a £40 made in china light uses the same LED....

Having done Hay-on-Wye to Abergavenny at 1am with no light as my cheapo Chinese one crapped out, I understand the importance of quality for these sort of things.

Bordersroadie

carrock wrote:

Grill wrote:

Exposure lights will sort you right out. I use the MaxxD and even on less than half setting it's too bright.

Yes. I have used a Diablo for the past 2 years- the quality is staggeringly good, it is light and bright.

Of course, someone will be along to say that a £40 made in china light uses the same LED....

+1

I've used an Exposure Toro for 2 years. Bright as a car headlight, very high quality, utterly reliable, waterproof in torrential rain and it survived coming off the clip (I hadn't attached it correctly) and bouncing down the hill I was descending in the pitch dark at about 30mph. I don't even bother taking a back up front light any more.

Oh, and a 2 year guarantee and superb service from USE (Exposure), based in UK with real problem-solving people on the end of a telephone line.

Worth every penny.

mfin

+1 for Toro, not too big, amazingly bright, will do the 3 hours set to full brightness. Current Toro is 1200 lumens, which is incredibly bright, mine is the older 900ish lumen one, and even that's plenty enough to light up absolutely everything in front even for fast descending, especially on roads you are familiar with.

paulb369uk

Just ordered a set of Smart lunar 35 lux from JE James for around £20 had good reviews so thought I would give them a try !!

wytco0

Thanks everyone some useful ides, I like the idea of a quality products and the MaxxD looks fantastic although I have to say its a touch on the dear side. Is it overkill for road riding?

I spent some time looking at the BIG lighting thread but found it a bit confusing with so many models being discussed.

I also need to think about rear lights, any real world recommendations? I did see a report about one that also acted as a brake light which seemed a good idea but I don't think its actually available.

Finally is an additional helmet mounted light needed or recommended for road riding?

Grill

It's great on the road. If it's too dear look at the Strada or Toro.

asprilla

I'm on my second Exposure Strada having upgraded to the new one this year. To be honest, even the old one was bright enough.

I like the Strada because its got a combination beam pattern of spot and wide. The wide it generally enough for any road riding and its reasonably dipped (the beam pattern puts the light on the road where you want it) that you won't be blinding folks coming the other way.

Sometimes I hate riding through the winter being dazzled by folks with twelvety billion lumen torches blinding all and sundry with inconsiderate mean patterns. It's not about whet you've got, but how you use it.

carrock

Grill wrote:

It's great on the road. If it's too dear look at the Strada or Toro.

Diablo same performance as Toro but cheaper and smaller due to smaller battery. Only downside is 1 hr run time on max

MichaelW

If you are riding long distance daily in the dark, then dynamo-hub lights are hard to beat. Modern LED lamps are optimized for cycling (unlike many of the battery lamp units) and there is no battery management to deal with. It is a fit and forget system that can also run your rear lamp. Additional battery lamps are always useful as backups and for repairs.

bompington

Asprilla wrote:

Sometimes I hate riding through the winter being dazzled by folks with twelvety billion lumen torches blinding all and sundry with inconsiderate mean patterns. It's not about whet you've got, but how you use it.

My 2 XML lights (both way under £40 ;-), from China of course) come with this really clever dipping mechanism:

You just tilt them downwards a bit on the bars.

As for reliability, I have had five cheap dealextreme type lights in the years since cheap high-power LEDs became available, two have failed over the years but I never ride with just one, and I still haven't got to half the price of a Maxx-D.

TooOldForThis

paulb369uk wrote:

Just ordered a set of Smart lunar 35 lux from JE James for around £20 had good reviews so thought I would give them a try !!

I used to use the 35 lux. It's fine for around town but not good in total darkness. You can follow the white line but you get little warning of potholes and such.

These days I use a lezyne superdrive combined with an ultrafire c8.

The C8 cost £8 and takes the same 18650 batteries as the superdrive. I find its beam pattern too spread for the road so I point it just in front of the bike to help spot potholes, but it is very bright and certainly lights up the way.

Smart R1 on the rear.

asprilla

bompington wrote:

You just tilt them downwards a bit on the bars.

Would you mind touring the country training others in this technique?

Of course, with a round beam pattern you are still going to get a load of spill when you focus the spot where you need it.

Germany has very strict rules for bike lights, in that they must dip same as car lights so as not to dazzle on coming traffic. Philips offer this, which is supposed to be very good indeed; http://www.rosebikes.co.uk/article/phil ... tAodm2oAGA

Ouija

Pug ugly and eighty quid though....

A better solution is to buy one of the newer Chinese jobbies with a remote switch so you can dip the lights without having to move your hand ( i suspect a lot of the reason people blind oncoming motorists is because it's just too inconvenient to take their hands off the bar and start fiddling with the lights mode button... so just leave it on whatever they are currently using). Not much of a problem on country lanes however, as you tend to see a car once every ten minutes and often have advanced warning of it coming (or is that just Yorkshire countryside).

andyh01

I thoufght I'd be in a similar position after getting quite far in a job interview which would see my commute change the job didn't come off so not so much of a concern, although I have parionia about being hit from behind rather than from side (where you can see whether you think a veh might pull out in front of you) I currently have the Lezyne microdrive combo and I am still considering upgrading them. My main concern is the rear light (currently 70 lumes in day time flash mode) and for this I think I'd go for the Hope District 3 - durable, reliable,decent warrenty and bright with good reviews (as I understand), again at £130 ish for charger and battery pack, it then makes sense to go with the Hope R4 front (as can use same battery pack) but the combo is a bit expensive (esp in comparrisionto my current needs) and again doesn't use the latest technology that's available for cheaper but not as reliable. I've also look at lumicycle offering; http://www.lumicycle.com/pages/default.aspx
As well as the Exposure stuff but again with the Hope rear unless I can bodge the batteries together I'd would need two batteries/chargers for the different systems.

RDW

Asprilla wrote:

I like the Strada because its got a combination beam pattern of spot and wide. The wide it generally enough for any road riding and its reasonably dipped (the beam pattern puts the light on the road where you want it) that you won't be blinding folks coming the other way.

I also got the Strada (Mk4, 2013) a couple of months ago - pricey, but built like a tank and agree about the beam pattern. You can control the 'dip' from a bar-mounted remote switch. Shinybikes had the cheapest deal I could find at the time, and it's a few quid cheaper now:

http://www.shinybikes.com/exposure-stra ... -2013.html

probably because there's already a new Mk5 model for 2014:

http://www.shinybikes.com/exposure-stra ... -2014.html

Not sure what they've changed this year - output and capacity seem to be the same (800 lumens, 8700mAh):

http://use1.com/exposure-lights/cycling ... strada-mk5

The road.cc review has some nice images of what to expect from the beam of the Strada (Mk4, 2013) and a large selection of other lights:

http://road.cc/content/review/76309-exp ... ront-light

I also liked the reviews elsewhere of the Philips mentioned above, though the battery capacity seemed a bit limiting. There ought to be much more emphasis on beam shape (and not dazzling other road users!) rather than raw power.

For the tail light I have the Moon Shield, which is certainly very bright:

http://road.cc/content/review/49061-moo ... tail-light

Some good in-depth reviews of various lights here:

http://www.bikelightsreview.com/

Crozza

Have a play with this website

http://fonarevka.ru/

it's in Russian but there's a huge amount of photos of beams in a variety of situations, and you can even choose low/med/high settings

Crozza

and when you have had a look - come back here and tell me you don't want an Ultrafire WF-900 SST P70 (because you never know when it might be handy to signal someone in space)

lef

Lezyne super drive has been good for cycling at night in a country park with deer and the like. Quite a low profile light but pretty bright. Rear light I have a Exposure Flare and also a 5 LED Cateye. If you're on unlit roads with the likelihood of cars approaching you from behind I suggest you have two rear lights. Over the years there's been a few times the rear light has turned itself of or the battery has gone flat.

earth

I had this dilemma last year.

This is a good website:
http://www.torchythebatteryboy.com/p/bi ... abase.html

I went for an Exposure Strada 4. At half power (400 lumens) is perfectly bright enough but you get the feeling you are straining slightly compared to the full 800 lumen setting. But at 800 lumens it can dazzle people if you don't tilt it down. Of course with such bright light and excellent throw the urge is to point it further up the road.

The remote switch is working at the moment but when it was wet last winter it stopped working after two weeks and that is when I needed it. Beam pattern is very good for the road.

I seriously considered one of the cheaper options that look great in that website but was worried about reliability. Apart from the remote switch the Exposure is bomb proof.

If you get a bright light be prepared for comments such as 'Where did you get that light?', 'I could see you half a mile away', 'That is a big bright light', 'That light is just too bright'

housemunkey

I got a Moon XP1000 back in 2011 and its been great, more than bright enough even on lower settings; rarely have I used it for long at max 1000 lumens just because it's not really needed. The 4600mah battery gives a longer life than many systems out there as well.

Rear is a cateye 5 LED LD610. Again really bright and loads of different settings, solid, flashing and even the full knightrider!

What I do need however is some half decent backups. Lezyne perhaps?

hoojammyflip

I am pleased with my Hope V2. As mentioned above, the District can just plug into the same battery. Durability is key if you are going to be riding in the middle of nowhere.

The Lupine Tesla can be found cheap at the moment.

Something to note is that the eye sees logarithmically. So you need a change in lumen rating of a factor of 2 in order to really see a difference between two lights.

spasypaddy

im a massive exposure fan.

id be wanting one of these this year if i hadnt bought a joystick for my helmet last year
http://use1.com/exposure-lights/cycling ... ts/equinox

andyh01

Got me thinking as I do prefer the all in one units rather than seperate battery packs, looking at the exposure stuff seem to have a lot of helmet light, I've always tended to go for bar mounts - which is better bar or helmet mounts? Helmet mounts puts the light where you're looking but say if your shoulder checking and a car does not see you at a junction (as you're not looking that way) then defeats the purpose or do you run a bar light "to be seen by" too?
Also going for an all in one means re thinking the rear light or stick with the District rear with battery/charger combo

spasypaddy

Andy, for about 3 years i had a strada mounted on my bars and a flare on the seat post.

Last august I got hit by a car at a roundabout just after i'd gone past his entry point onto the roundabout. I only had a handlebar light. At that point i got thinking, i knew I'd looked at him in the face as i'd gone past the roundabout and made a decision to get a powerful helmet light.

i now ride in the dark with a strada on the bars, a basic rear light on my saddle bag, and on my helmet a joystick with a red eye plugged into it. I always ride with a helmet so i have lights with me whenever i have my bike so i never forget them.

slowbike

Only prob I've noticed with helmet lights is that at first you've no idea what they are - one guy I can across had a dim light on the bars and a powerful light on his head - it was only as I went past that I realised it was a bike. Fortunately I was going the other way, in my car and well out of his way.

For that reason I would suggest bar lights at least as powerful as the head light if not more so.
Side view is very important on busy roads - no good wih a pin point light that shows you where you're riding if it can't be seen from the side - a second see me light on the bars might help with this.

As for rear - 2-3 good lights plus reflectives - it's where I'm most likely to be hit from as I commute country roads

asprilla

Exposure Strada Mk4 on the bars and a Hope District+ on the back and then an Exposure Joystick Mk7 with a Red-eye on the helmet. I usually have the Strada pulsing (wide beam stays constant whilst spot flashes on medium) and the Joystick either set to pulse or on one of it's lowest settings.

In terms of reflectives, I find spoke reflectors are the most effective as they work best side on, which most lights don't.

TheCoo'sTail

+1 for the Exposure Toro bought last year after getting advice on here and it is brilliant, just what I needed. I have a 1.5 mile thick wooded section on my 8 mile almost entirely country commute which I was concerned about. Up here, just after 6am it's inky black (it's the same after 3pm sometimes too :-) ) and the Exposure Toro turns this blackness back into almost daylight. Can't recommend the Toro and Exposure enough. In fact I've just ordered the Flash and Flare for the good bike.

Just to add, I was stopped from a guy just as I was pulling up to my house one evening who wanted to know what light I was using. He'd told me that he had been passing me in his car for weeks and had noticed the light and was impressed. I gave him the details and he bought one the following day (I've since bumped into him several times). They are pricey BUT what price do you put on safety and reliability?