Lights for Night Riding?

Snuffleupagus

A couple of friends and I are doing the North Georgia Adventure Race in January, and part of the manditory gear is a cycling lamp.

I've got a Specalized headlamp for my roadbike, but that's really more so people can see me. Not exactly well suited to riding a 50 mile portion of a 24 hour adventure race on an MTB.

What I need to find is a light system that fits the following criteria:
-Light weight
-VERY bright
-Tough (water resistant too)
-Minimum of a 12 hour battery life

Preferably under 200 bucks too...

Any suggestions?

tyler_derden

12 hour battery life is going to be tough if you also want bright. Is this off-road or on-road riding?

TD

__________________
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

Snuffleupagus

It is going to be primarily off-road. Singletrack and Logging Roads.

If we have to carry extra batteries then we will, but in a perfect world we won't have to stop to screw around with it/carry the additional weight.

Duckwah

Whatever light system you get you are going to have to change batteries over 12 hours unless you carry a car battery!

Your best bet may be small sealed, lead acid batteries but I think for 12 hours you will still need a couple and they aren't all that light.

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Don Stevenson

Strength and Conditioning Coach

Octogen Fitness

www.octogen.com.au

fitness@octogen.com.au

effexsport

the only type of bulb that is super bright and does'nt require as much power is a LED type light even a key chain light if its LED will be many time as bright on a single spot than a maglight. see if you could find a LED head lamp or jerry rig a few yourself. good luck

Meek One

I just picked up a LED light (5 LED's) in a very compact and light, no pun intended, package. I'll go outside and see how well it lights up the night. Tried it. I'd call it adequate. The center beam lit up the 50 feet to the tree in front of the house easily and the 4 surrounding light kinda acted like fog lights do on a car where they throw a beam a little out towards the sides. Cateye makes a comparable one to mine. You might want to see if you could if your LBS has one you could try in the evening. If you're interested here is the page...

http://www.cateye.com/en/products/v...Id=7&subCatId=2

Aha check this out.

http://www.cateye.com/en/products/v...Id=7&subCatId=2



Good luck finding what you are looking for. Sounds like a neat race. Got a link to it?

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-Meek
"Some people train to look pretty. I just train so I can be the strongest man there is. And then again, I'm already pretty." -Magnus Samuelsson

mkos

I used 2 of the Cateye EL-300 LED front lamps last year while taking part in Paris-Brest-Paris which involved being on the road for 3 nights. I found them to be ok but they had very little peripheral beam spread. I plan on doing London-Edinburgh-London next year and will probably use them again but will probably supplement them with a head torch. Petzyl do one with a halogen beam and 5 LEDs for far and near vision. They also supply a battery case which can be placed on a belt or back pocket of a jersey. I doubt the Cateye's would be very good for prolonged off road.

Snuffleupagus

Meek One: the race link is www.ngar.org

Cheesy

For technical riding it will be virtually impossible to pick up a bright light that will last 12 hours.

State of the art (to my knowledge) are the HID (high intensity discharge) lights - much more efficient than traditional lights, but also much more expensive. They are far brighter than traditional lights.

While I haven't used one myself (yet), I will be buying one from Lume Lighting - www.lumelighting.com - but they don't come cheap. They are not too heavy, very bright, and have a claimed burn time of 3.5hr. Price is around the $300 mark (one of the cheaper HID lights) (handlebar or helmet mount)

I currently use a twin halogen (10W + 15W) from Cateye for technical night-time riding, but find that I still have to dismount for some difficult and unfamiliar sections that I would have been able to ride in daylight. I like this light, but it is not as bright as HID, and has a shorter battery life (on the single 10W bulb only, max of around 2hr? Both bulbs comes down to around the 1hr mark) (handlebar only)

However, for 12 hours you will need a second light, eg a small LED headlight for non-technical sections. If battery life is critical, do not use your main headlight unless it is a technical section. Pretty much any LED headlight will last 12 hours.

If the course is generally non-technical, then I would go with LED for the battery life and weight savings. I have used a range of LED lights, by far the best I have used is the Cateye HL-EL500
http://www.cateye.com/en/products/v...Id=7&subCatId=2
This probably comes in at around $50 (I'm in Japan so don't know for sure), and battery life will not be an issue. I have considered for long night rides using 2 of these mounted on the handlebars, and this is sufficient light for non-technical riding (I have used one only on a rough but non-technical ascent & descent, great for the ascent, ok but a little scary at times on the descent)

Snuffleupagus

Cheesy: Thanks for the long reply.

What it looks like we're gonna do is get the LED headlights to ride with in between checkpoints, and use bright helmet/head mounted lights when looking for checkpoints, and also over any technical sections.

Thanks!

jjcamper

ya auto check out "Night Hawk" Digital Emitter

www.nite-halk.com