What headlight do I need?

Andrew Price said:

On Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:53:06 -0800, SMS <[email hidden]>
wrote:

[---]

Quoted message said:

There is no way that the Lumotec 3W headlamp is sufficient for the
speeds that the original poster is contemplating in areas without any
other lighting.

I have to agree - I have one, and although it is fine in the city, I
had to supplement it with external battery-driven halogen lamps for
riding safely at speed though woodland and forest.

This is what I planned to do on my folding bicycle, and what many people
that ride the Breezer's and other bicycles with hub dynamos actually do.
The battery light can be turned off when not necessary.

However I found that the bottle dynamo I bought could not be mounted on
the folder, and Dahon doesn't yet sell their hub dynamo wheel in the U.S..

I think that what some Europeans don't understand is that in many parts
of the U.S., including in urban areas, there are many roads and bicycle
trails that are routinely used for commuting that have no street
lighting at all. A low power light is adequate for "being seen" in
these unlit areas, but not for illuminating the road sufficiently for
high speed riding.

Quoting SMS <[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

I think that what some Europeans don't understand is that in many parts
of the U.S., including in urban areas, there are many roads and bicycle
trails that are routinely used for commuting that have no street
lighting at all. A low power light is adequate for "being seen" in
these unlit areas, but not for illuminating the road sufficiently for
high speed riding.

Of course you have been told a hundred times, when we tell you that we
ride at night without any difficulty using 3W dynamo headlamps, that we
are riding on completely unlit roads.

Note; Scharf is *not* trying to innocently explain things here under the
mistaken impression that we always ride on lit roads. He *cannot* not
already know what I have just told him. He is, purely and simply, a liar.
--
David Damerell <[email hidden]> Distortion Field!
Today is Gloucesterday, November.

SMS said:

I think that what some Europeans don't understand is that in many parts
of the U.S., including in urban areas, there are many roads and bicycle
trails that are routinely used for commuting that have no street
lighting at all. A low power light is adequate for "being seen" in
these unlit areas, but not for illuminating the road sufficiently for
high speed riding.

And, as has been described many times, there are many of us even in the
US (!) who routinely use generator lights on ALL roads with no
problems.

I lead night rides for my bike club. We frequently ride on unlit
roads. My generator lights do fine - yes, at 20 mph and beyond. They
are better than almost all the lights people bring.

Interestingly, on almost every ride I've led (dozens and dozens) there
has been at least one rider with a problem with their battery light.
Most common is the simple "Gosh, I thought this battery was charged!"
Others have been "I don't understand! The company said it was good for
two hours!" of "Gee, I guess that alkaline I had in the drawer wasn't
fresh after all."

The generator lights just keep running and running. No charging, no
dimming, no trading batteries, no worries.

- Frank Krygowski

Frank Krygowski said:

David L. Johnson said:

SMS said:

The new ones are much better. They are higher efficiency, and the ones
inside the hub solve the problems of slippage and tire wear.

For a price, Louie, for a price.

Hub units are pricier, but even modern bottle units are far better than
what people remember from their teen years. And they are not
particularly expensive. Certainly cheaper than most high-powered
incandescents or LEDs!

Probably true, but the reference was to hub generators as well as to
Casablanca. Even the best bottle generators will be awkward to move from
bike to bike, and will be pretty heavy.

If you have a long commute in the dark, or do a lot of recreational riding
at night, then a hub generator is the way to go. If I were in that camp,
I'd probably get a Schmidt. But for shorter commutes and occasional night
rides, and those times when you just aren't sure you'll get back before
dark, an easy-to-attach, bright, lightweight light is the way to go. The
DiNotte is the best thing I have seen or heard tell about for these
criteria.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | Enron's slogan: Respect, Communication, Integrity, and
_`\(,_ | Excellence.
(_)/ (_) |

David L. Johnson said:

Probably true, but the reference was to hub generators as well as to
Casablanca. Even the best bottle generators will be awkward to move from
bike to bike, and will be pretty heavy.

The el-cheapo bottle units are inexpensive enough to put one on every
bike, but the Busch & Müller Dymotec bottle dynamos are not.

Go to "http://nordicgroup.us/s78/dynamo.html" and there is a lot of
information on the different sources for the lower priced dynamos.

I.e. the Marwi 9853 is only $40 for a somewhat complete system, though
the mounting pieces are not all included.

"http://www.loosescrews.com/index.cgi?d=single&c=Accessories&sc=Generator&tc=&item_id=UF-23009&id=89875336078"

I put powerful halogen lighting systems on bicycles I use routinely for
night riding, as they are cheap enough to not bother with a removable
system, about $70 total for two M16 lamps, and a battery. For other
bikes, the TwoFish Cyclopblock and the Streamlight Strion provide a much
brighter light than any dynamo other than the Dymotec 12 volt dynamo
with a 5 watt light, plus the optics are more versatile since you can go
from flood to spot. It also serves as a repair light.

As Peter Cole wrote:

"I'm always surprised that so many serious cyclists who otherwise
recognize the equivalence of bicycles to other vehicles take exception
to lighting requirements. I wouldn't dare operate a motorcycle with a 3W
light, so I don't understand the recommendation to operate a bicycle (at
often similar speeds ) with such inadequate lights. Perhaps this was an
accommodation to the technological limitations of the past, but in these
times of readily available and relatively cheap, high-wattage
alternatives, it seems a bad way to go."

SMS said:

I think that what some Europeans don't understand is that in many
parts of the U.S., including in urban areas, there are many roads and
bicycle trails that are routinely used for commuting that have no
street lighting at all. A low power light is adequate for "being seen"
in these unlit areas, but not for illuminating the road sufficiently
for high speed riding.

I'm in the U.S., not Europe. I'll just mention that night is just as
dark in Europe as it is here in the U.S., from personal experience.

I use a Schmidt SON with a Lumotec Oval headlight with a 3W halogen
bulb. I use it in the city (St. Paul-Minneapolis) and I use it in the
country. I've ridden from dusk till dawn in rural Iowa and rural
southern Minnesota where there wasn't a street light for miles. I've
descended down unfamiliar hills at 40 mph with it. It's actually
better in the middle of nowhere than it is in the city, although it's
adequate for the latter. In the city, the light gets washed out a bit
in the glare from headlights and halide street lamps.

IME this system lights up the road as well or better than my 10W
NightRider battery system. What I don't get is ultrabright bounceback
(specular reflections) that interfere with night vision, and that's a
good thing. Unless your night vision is actually deficient, which is
the case for some people just like partial color blindness is the case
me, it's not necessary to try to reproduce daylight with a mini-klieg
light on your bike.

http://www.jgp.org/cgi/reprint/63/1/37

BTW, both smoking and alcohol reduce your night vision; alcohol
reduces your pupillary response reducing the light reaching your
retina by up to 20%, as well as affecting your brain's ability to
process the visual information. Smoking reduces the retina to achieve
full dark adaptation, and reduces sensitivity to low light by up to
50%. In short, drinking alcohol and smoking before going on your
night ride is going to make things more difficult for you, perhaps in
more ways than one.

SMS said:

I put powerful halogen lighting systems on bicycles I use routinely
for night riding, as they are cheap enough to not bother with a
removable system, about $70 total for two M16 lamps, and a
battery. For other bikes, the TwoFish Cyclopblock and the
Streamlight Strion provide a much brighter light than any dynamo
other than the Dymotec 12 volt dynamo with a 5 watt light, plus the
optics are more versatile since you can go from flood to spot.

As has been pointed out to you many times in previous threads,
brighter is not necessarily better. I proved this to myself with the
35W 12V battery light system I built. So much light that I couldn't
see a thing outside of the immediate cone of illumination, and any
nearby reflective object like a street sign was dazzling.

The Strion looks like a nice light, but the paltry 70 minute run time
makes it a no-go. Wouldn't even get me home from work this time of
year. The need for long run times can make most battery systems less
attractive. I have had reasonable utility from the Planet Bike 1W LED
light; it's adequate to ride up to 20 mph but I wouldn't want to ride
all night with it. It does go a good few hours, though.

Quoted message said:

It also serves as a repair light.

An excellent reason to carry some kind of battery powered light on
night rides. I carry a small keychain LED that works really well.

Tim McNamara said:

SMS said:

I put powerful halogen lighting systems on bicycles I use routinely
for night riding, as they are cheap enough to not bother with a
removable system, about $70 total for two M16 lamps, and a
battery. For other bikes, the TwoFish Cyclopblock and the
Streamlight Strion provide a much brighter light than any dynamo
other than the Dymotec 12 volt dynamo with a 5 watt light, plus the
optics are more versatile since you can go from flood to spot.

As has been pointed out to you many times in previous threads,
brighter is not necessarily better.

No argument there, but dimmer is also not necessarily better. With the
MR11 and MR16 lamps, the good thing is that you can get very distinct
and precise beam patterns which avoid the problems you encountered.

Tim McNamara said:

I'm in the U.S., not Europe. I'll just mention that night is just as
dark in Europe as it is here in the U.S., from personal experience.

LOL.

I was referring to how well streets are lit in different countries. At
least in France, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Russia, and Switzerland,
in my experience, the streets are well lit even in the far reaches of
the cities. I can't vouch for the U.K..

A lot of the popular commute routes where I am have no street lighting
at all, and most of the others have very little, even major expressways
which are popular with cyclists.

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 06:17:53 -0800, SMS:

Quoted message said:

However I found that the bottle dynamo I bought could not be mounted on
the folder, and Dahon doesn't yet sell their hub dynamo wheel in the U.S..

The SON XS hub dynamo in the Dahon-version (74mm over locknuts, 9mm axle
ends) is available through Peter White Cycles in the US.

Andreas

The

Quoted message said:

DiNotte is the best thing I have seen or heard tell about for these
criteria.

The DiNotte is another rechargeble that's unsuitable for all night
rides. Best I've seen is a combination of a Cateye el-500 (1 watt LED) and
a Princeton Tec helmet mounted (1 watt LED). The EL-500 will give you at
least 10 hours on 4 AA batteries, and the Princeton Tec will give you 7
hours on 3 AAA batteries.

Claudius Vitalis said:

The

Quoted message said:

DiNotte is the best thing I have seen or heard tell about for these
criteria.

The DiNotte is another rechargeble that's unsuitable for all night
rides. Best I've seen is a combination of a Cateye el-500 (1 watt LED) and
a Princeton Tec helmet mounted (1 watt LED). The EL-500 will give you at
least 10 hours on 4 AA batteries, and the Princeton Tec will give you 7

The DiNotte is ideal for all night rides because AA batteries are about
the cheapest batteries around. You can buy AA NiMH batteries for $1 each
for 2000 mAH. A few extra sets, and you're good to go, with far more
illumination than 1 watt LED lights will provide.

NiMH batteries can be rather a pain, due to the high self-discharge
rate. Lead-Acid and Li-Ion are better in that regard.

How does the illumination supplied with a Schmidt Hub, compare to the
DiNotte?

:
: I lead night rides for my bike club. We frequently ride on unlit
: roads. My generator lights do fine - yes, at 20 mph and beyond. They
: are better than almost all the lights people bring.
: - Frank Krygowski

What brand of lights do you use? And, do you have faint lights when you are
going slow--say, 10 mph?

Pat in TX
:

Claudius Vitalis said:

The

Quoted message said:

DiNotte is the best thing I have seen or heard tell about for these
criteria.

The DiNotte is another rechargeble that's unsuitable for all night
rides.

If you are talking about regular, all-night rides, you should be using a
hub-dynamo. As I and others mentioned before. The criteria I was
mentioning was different; short commutes at night, like mine, and
occasional night rides, or rides that might not end before nightfall (or
would start before dawn). This hits most of us, frankly, including those
who sleep rather than ride overnight.

But even for such use the DiNotte might be useful. They have a C-cell
battery pack, or you could buy one elsewhere, which lasts for 4 hours on
high beam, and even its low beam is much brighter than a 1-watt LED.

I rode home this evening with both my DiNotte and my backup 1-W Planet
Bike light. The Planet bike only helps people see me (It has a relatively
large reflector, and appears fairly large), but in terms of seeing the
road, it didn't make any difference whether it was on or off compared to
the DiNotte.

If 2 1w LED lights are enough for you, then fine, but they aren't enough
for me.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | Deserves death! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve
_`\(,_ | death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to
(_)/ (_) | them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.
-- J. R. R. Tolkein

SMS said:

Tim McNamara said:

I'm in the U.S., not Europe. I'll just mention that night is just
as dark in Europe as it is here in the U.S., from personal
experience.

LOL.

I was referring to how well streets are lit in different
countries. At least in France, Germany, Austria, Netherlands,
Russia, and Switzerland, in my experience, the streets are well lit
even in the far reaches of the cities. I can't vouch for the U.K..

A lot of the popular commute routes where I am have no street
lighting at all, and most of the others have very little, even major
expressways which are popular with cyclists.

Neither of these make any difference to the non-validity of your
claims, Steve. City streets are generally well-lit in the US, and
city streets are generally well-lit in most developed countries. Get
out of town, fewer if any street lights whether in the US, France,
Germany, Switzerland, etc.

My 3W lighting system works great outside of town, where you said it
wouldn't, and it works well enough in town that I've not had any
problem with hitting objects I couldn't see. The situation is no
difference whether one is in Europe or the US, except perhaps that
most European countries do better road maintenance.

Maybe you should have your eyes checked to see if your night vision is
adequate?

SMS said:

Tim McNamara said:

SMS said:

I put powerful halogen lighting systems on bicycles I use routinely
for night riding, as they are cheap enough to not bother with a
removable system, about $70 total for two M16 lamps, and a
battery. For other bikes, the TwoFish Cyclopblock and the
Streamlight Strion provide a much brighter light than any dynamo
other than the Dymotec 12 volt dynamo with a 5 watt light, plus the
optics are more versatile since you can go from flood to spot.

As has been pointed out to you many times in previous threads,
brighter is not necessarily better.

No argument there, but dimmer is also not necessarily better. With the
MR11 and MR16 lamps, the good thing is that you can get very distinct
and precise beam patterns which avoid the problems you encountered.

I built my 35W 12V light set with an MR11 or MR16, I can't recall-
whichever is the larger size. The 35W was just too bright, it
actually made it harder to see the whole picture; plus it sucked an
SLA battery dry in an hour. I liked that the field of illumination
was very smooth and even, no weird shadows from strangely shaped
lenses as commonly afflict both battery and generator headlights for
bikes. Why *do* they do that, anyway? I have a Basta Ellipsoid light
that is just atrocious in this regard. My Lumotec is much better, in
part because the optics make the top of the beam brighter, which evens
out the pool of light on the road.

You are correct that dimmer is not necessarily better- if that were
the case, then the best light would be none at all!

SMS said:

Claudius Vitalis said:

Quoted message said:

The DiNotte is the best thing I have seen or heard tell about for
these criteria.

The DiNotte is another rechargeble that's unsuitable for all night
rides. Best I've seen is a combination of a Cateye el-500 (1 watt
LED) and a Princeton Tec helmet mounted (1 watt LED). The EL-500
will give you at least 10 hours on 4 AA batteries, and the
Princeton Tec will give you 7

The DiNotte is ideal for all night rides because AA batteries are
about the cheapest batteries around. You can buy AA NiMH batteries
for $1 each for 2000 mAH. A few extra sets, and you're good to go,
with far more illumination than 1 watt LED lights will provide.

NiMH batteries can be rather a pain, due to the high self-discharge
rate. Lead-Acid and Li-Ion are better in that regard.

Not to mention having to stop and change them, carry them and find
them in your bag in the dark. Or worse, discover that they fell out
somehow. Precisely why I bought a SON hub!

David L. Johnson said:

Claudius Vitalis said:

Quoted message said:

The DiNotte is the best thing I have seen or heard tell about for
these criteria.

The DiNotte is another rechargeble that's unsuitable for all night
rides.

If you are talking about regular, all-night rides, you should be
using a hub-dynamo. As I and others mentioned before. The criteria
I was mentioning was different; short commutes at night, like mine,
and occasional night rides, or rides that might not end before
nightfall (or would start before dawn). This hits most of us,
frankly, including those who sleep rather than ride overnight.

Good point- it is, as the saying goes, horses for courses. For most
night rides I use my SON because they are going to be longer rides
than battery life makes convenient. For many rides where I might end
up riding into dusk or early evening, I usually carry a battery
light. Depends on what bike I feel like riding. I've only got a
headlight for the SON on one bike, and I have a Sanyo Dynapower on
another. My favorite bike makes do with battery powered lights- the
Cateye Micro II or the Planet Bike 1W LED. More light from the
former, longer battery life from the latter.

Callistus Valerius said:

How does the illumination supplied with a Schmidt Hub, compare to
the DiNotte?

That's going to depend on what headlight you use with the hub. All
the hub does is create electricity. There are a least a dozen
headlights you could choose from for the hub. Somewhere out in the
world there is a Web site that compares some of the beam patterns. I
think there is a link to it on Peter White's very informative Web
site:

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com