Front light to see with

Cyclum

I've been using Lezyne Zecto Drive LED Lights with the Cateye SL110 as backups. They have been fab until now but I've found that now it's getting really dark my front light isn't bright enough to help me see where I'm going - I was struggling to see kerbs in darker stretches of my commute.

I think my back lights are probably fine but can someone recommend a good light to see where I'm going that doesn't break the bank? Ideally one that doesn't require brackets as I'm trying to keep my road bike as striped down as possible.

Thanks.

Anonymous

Guessing Chinese ebay lights will get a mention, but if you want something from a shop I think the Cateye Volt 300 is pretty good at the moment.
It seems to tick all the box's, apart from annoying bracket

Knog do a 300 lumen version of their Blinder now, but I still went for Volt (and suffered the bracket) as its cheaper/better VFM, and seems more purposeful.

ai_1

I use a Philips Saferide 80lux. Excellent beam for the road similar to a car dipped headlight. Only issue is a short duration of only about 90 mins at full power. The Busch+Muller Ixon IQ Premium should be a good alternative. I think the beam is a little narrower but still very good shaped beam and it's got much better durationat 5 hours of full power. Also they're on sale from Rosebikes at the moment. These are a much better choice than a cheap axial beam light from Dealextreme or the like in my opinion.

http://www.rosebikes.com/article/b--m-i ... aid:703598

dj58

If you can stretch to £70-£80 have a look at the Cateye Volt 700, fairly compact for a decent light output though you will have to use the FlexTight bracket that comes with it.

southdownswolf

I've got a Busch+Muller Ixon IQ Premium for use on my road bike, much better than the Chinese lights off ebay for road use. I do have Chinese lights for off road though.

kajjal

Evans have various Lezyne light for sale at around half price at the moment. All ex display but my wife's was reduced from £90 to £45 and is very good.

scott_w1987

I've got a 2015 Lezyne powerdrive xl loaded which is 600 lumens for 90 minutes, loaded does come with a second battery and holder so you can take it out with you for another 90 minutes run time.

Cyclum

I found a Lezyne PowerDrive Y8 for £51 (from £98) so I've ordered that. Hopefully I'll be able to see where I'm going now.
Thanks!

kajjal

There are plenty of good deals if you look around

rowlers

lezyne deca drive loaded from the upgrade outlet store for £80. It is awesome....

richmarriott

Cyclum wrote:

I found a Lezyne PowerDrive Y8 for £51 (from £98) so I've ordered that. Hopefully I'll be able to see where I'm going now.
Thanks!

Can you post a link please as I'm looking for a new light

Thanks

carrock

exposure lights. fantastic quality. have used exposure diablo for years
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/exposure/lights

richmarriott

They look amazing but my pockets aren't that deep I'm afraid. Was looking to spend 50 to 100, don't mind going 2nd hand if I have too... Thanks

Banno

These seriously are very good lights. And I'm not just talking about for the money, for lots more money!
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CREE-XM-L-XML ... 565bc4628e
Both me and my lad have got a pair. They've lasted for two years and are going strong.

rowlers

richmarriott wrote:

They look amazing but my pockets aren't that deep I'm afraid. Was looking to spend 50 to 100, don't mind going 2nd hand if I have too... Thanks

Exposure Joystick Mk8 available from Rutland Cycling for under £100.
Cracking light...

ben@31

Guessing Chinese ebay lights will get a mention

Cree T6. Brighter than the sun but considerably cheaper. Used one all last winter, only had to give the screw on the mounting bracket a tweak as it started to rattle, apart from that I had no problems, even in the rain. I had to run it on its lowest setting it's that bright. Certainly cost me less than £50, probably half that?

Theres a big review and thread on it here... http://forums.roadbikereview.com/commut ... 236-2.html

ai_1

ben@31 wrote:

Guessing Chinese ebay lights will get a mention

Cree T6. Brighter than the sun but considerably cheaper. Used one all last winter, only had to give the screw on the mounting bracket a tweak as it started to rattle, apart from that I had no problems, even in the rain. I had to run it on its lowest setting it's that bright. Certainly cost me less than £50, probably half that?

Theres a big review and thread on it here... http://forums.roadbikereview.com/commut ... 236-2.html

That's fine off road but really not suitable for road use. Excesively bright for an uncontrolled beam. A properly designed reflector/lens is a better approach than just throwing more power at it. A high power axial beam will blind oncoming traffic.

schlepcycling

I've just bought one of these for my commute http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Torchy-BK500-500-lumen-bike-light-USB-charging-swivel-mount-/121458800942?pt=UK_SportGoods_CyclAcces_RL&hash=item1c4782392e, I'm sure someone will be along to tell me it's rubbish and I've wasted my money but so far I've found it to be excellent.

metronome

Ai_1 wrote:

ben@31 wrote:

Guessing Chinese ebay lights will get a mention

Cree T6. Brighter than the sun but considerably cheaper. Used one all last winter, only had to give the screw on the mounting bracket a tweak as it started to rattle, apart from that I had no problems, even in the rain. I had to run it on its lowest setting it's that bright. Certainly cost me less than £50, probably half that?

Theres a big review and thread on it here... http://forums.roadbikereview.com/commut ... 236-2.html

That's fine off road but really not suitable for road use. Excesively bright for an uncontrolled beam. A properly designed reflector/lens is a better approach than just throwing more power at it. A high power axial beam will blind oncoming traffic.

I've got two of these on my cross bike. The beam is actually quite concentrated but out of curtesy they're both angled slightly down and to the left and have been great for road use. Under £20 for the pair from Amazon. Amazing value. I can't recommend them highly enough.

ai_1

metronome wrote:

.......I've got two of these on my cross bike. The beam is actually quite concentrated but out of curtesy they're both angled slightly down and to the left and have been great for road use. Under £20 for the pair from Amazon. Amazing value. I can't recommend them highly enough.

That's the problem though. You can get by with an axial beam pointing down & left but it's a huge compromise compared with a properly designed beam. You're using lots of power to generate lots of light and then you're not putting it where you really want it. While there's enough illumination to see where you're going, an overly bright central beam kills your night vision while the lower light intensity away from the centre which is what's lighting the road further away is relatively dim by comparison and due to diminished night vision it's not comfortable. The result is an uneven lighting pattern resulting, in my opinion, in less comfortable and safe night riding.

The problem is simple geometry.
If you work backwards from a requirement to provide a fairly evenly illuminated road surface, some peripheral visibility and a cut-off to prevent dazzling oncoming traffic you will not end up with a conical beam. It's simply not capable of meeting those requirements. Instead you end up with a trapezium type shape narrower and much brighter at the top with a pretty well defined cut-off to adequately illuminate just below the horizon but avoid dazzling. The further away the light hits the ground the more it has diffused and the lower the light levels thus a tighter and more intense region of the beam is needed (top of the trapezium) to do the same job that is accomplished in the foreground with a much wider and less intense region (the bottom of the trapezium). A symetrical beam will either illuminate the foreground too brightly and too narrowly or the distance too dimely and broadly or both. There is no avoiding this. You could use 2 or more lights with more or less focused beams ("spot" versus "flood") to approximate the desired solution but the only way to do it well is with a purpose designed reflector/lens. Since there are, now, reasonably priced lights that meet that spec I think it's a mistake to look elsewhere. If the Busch & Muller Ixon Premium performs similarly to the Philips Saferide 80lux but with the much better advertised run time then it's the closest I've seen to the ideal road light and it's not crazily expensive either. Bike lights have been marketed almost entirely on power figures (real or imagined!) for several years which has just resulted in people riding around with torches on their bikes instead of headlights. Only in Germany (that I know of) where they have specific regulations governing what's to be used on bikes have proper car style headlights made much of an appearance. In this particular case I think we should consider ourselves unlucky not to be constrained by such restrictions since they have the result of protecting consumers from misinformed choices. Again just my opinion, but I too started off looking for a cheap "torch" with lots of power until I sat back, had a think about it and realised this simply didn't make sense.

There's a reason car headlamp beams are designed the way they are. Now that LED and cell technology allows us produce sufficient light to cycle at speed in the dark we should be looking to cars for guidance on road light design. Our illumination needs are essentially the same, though we need a much lighter and more compact device. The current offerings are driven by cheap production methods and easy marketing strategies NOT best functionality.

jamlala

I'm torn between a Lezyne Macro and a CatEye Volt 300. Erring towards the cateye currently, unless anyone objects?!

the_rover

JamLala wrote:

I'm torn between a Lezyne Macro and a CatEye Volt 300. Erring towards the cateye currently, unless anyone objects?!

I've just bought the cateye volt 300 from this company.
http://www.totalcycling.com/en/Cateye-V ... 17208.aspx

I've not tried it out on the bike at night yet but having tried it in the garden and on the cul de sac I'm very confidant it will do the job for unlit roads.

Cheers.

timboellis

Any feedback on these

iron-clover

The Hope Vision 1 is brilliant for road use, and can be picked up fairly cheaply second hand. They use 4xAA batteries, and mine lasts for over 24h in low power mode (enough to see with when there are no cars to blind you- otherwise the 2nd setting is fine) using the energiser smart rechargables you find in most shops now.

The main beam is relatively narrow too, so you don't have to worry about blinding oncoming traffic but still have just enough to see each side of the road to let you know how fast you're going.

The biggest advantage is the batteries tbh- you don't have to worry about in built ones having been knackered by a previous owner, and the batteries are easily replaced once they start to diminish after x number of charge cycles.

joelsim

I have just received this pack in the post, but as they are a Xmas present from my boy to me I can't open them. I will review next week, but initial impressions having had a cheeky look is that they look incredible value.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-x-CREE-LED- ... 3f3ffb780c

joelsim

They are as bright as the sun. Several settings and a zoom to alter the scope of the beam. Really pleased with them actually. Packed back up now for Christmas.

Elfed

Carbonator wrote:

Guessing Chinese ebay lights will get a mention, but if you want something from a shop I think the Cateye Volt 300 is pretty good at the moment.
It seems to tick all the box's, apart from annoying bracket

Knog do a 300 lumen version of their Blinder now, but I still went for Volt (and suffered the bracket) as its cheaper/better VFM, and seems more purposeful.

Cateye Volt 300 pushes out a lot of light and has a long battery life on full power, around three hours I think. I ride on unlit roads and find the light is sufficient, it's very well made and can be had for around £36 if you look around.

northpole

Leftfield suggestion and completely ignoring the OP's brief - recently bought one generation out of date Exposure 6 pack from evans - £260 with a £50 voucher to spend in 2015 (man logic = £210). Quite heavy and it needs the Exposure mount. Reason for buying it was new office imposed new route to work on two sections of central London roads which frankly terrify me. I am hugely impressed with it's ability to light up signs into the distance; light up the moonscape road surface; and make drivers aware of my presence on the road. Used on max vol combined with strobe mode the battery lasts for weeks of commuting.

As I say, outside the OP's brief but I have been flabbergasted at how effective this light is - it is not pointed up into drivers eyes but still offers great visibility and, by default, passive protection.

Peter

rowlers

I done the same thing with a Joystick, bought last years model - 400lm - for a crazy price. It is a truly awesome bit of kit, lasts for weeks on flashing and on full can be used to light the way on unlit roads. I intend to get the Strada when funds allow.

DCI Gene Hunt

schlepcycling wrote:

I've just bought one of these for my commute http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Torchy-BK500-500-lumen-bike-light-USB-charging-swivel-mount-/121458800942?pt=UK_SportGoods_CyclAcces_RL&hash=item1c4782392e, I'm sure someone will be along to tell me it's rubbish and I've wasted my money but so far I've found it to be excellent.

For 20 quid I got the B01 light from torchy..........and its great