Does anyone have any experience with night riding and lighting systems? Lumens required for road and path riding at night? I wont be doing any "off-roading", but I like lots of light. I had an older system that died. I do not know its lumen output so I cannot compare it to current systems...some of which are pretty pricey. Thanks
Night riding and lights
- Thread starter dldavis
- Start date
Expect any LED light thats worth buying to cost about a dollar/lumen. I know guys that night right quite frequently that have spent upwards of $250 on lights. I have also seen HID lights used (same lights used in bmw headlights). They will cost about the same as a $250 LED light, but you can get over 3000lm out of one light. The only downside to HID is that it requires a ballast that can get kinda bulky and youre probably limited to about 3 hrs battery charge. I think HID is the safest option though if youre doing serious night riding. The last thing you need is to get hit bc someone didnt see you
My wife and I baught some lights a couple of years ago for night riding. They are made by Planet Bike. Our LBS recomended them and they work great for us. We don't ride at night all that often but they are nice to have if you find yourself away from home when the sun is going down.
dldavis said:
Exposure Lights
Light testing - the results
Fenix torches can act as good headlights too.
Ay Up lights. They're priced cheaper than a lot of comparable lights. They're built for any weather condition. They are lightweight and have a compact battery with good life. They don't overdrive their LED's like nearly everyone else. They're mucho bright. See the website for night time photos.
I have the Dinotte 400 series. 400 lumens and $269. Great light, very bright. You get two rechargeable batteries with 2.5 hours of use each at brightest setting.
Timely thread.
Just picked up a CygoLite Rover II off eBay for $80 and it's excellent! You'd think I had a car headlight on my bike. It's a dual LED setup that mounts on the handlebar with a battery pack that fits nicely in the bottle cage. For the money, the best city night riding light I found...
Just picked up a CygoLite Rover II off eBay for $80 and it's excellent! You'd think I had a car headlight on my bike. It's a dual LED setup that mounts on the handlebar with a battery pack that fits nicely in the bottle cage. For the money, the best city night riding light I found...
Just picked up a Light & Motion Seca 700 Ultra, brand new/never used, on eBay for $230US. Great light. It replaced a piece of junk NiteHawk K2 (no longer made/company out of business) which had become unreliable, and was in any event inadequate for my purposes. I'm using the Seca on the bars and combine it with an L&M Stella 200L (also bought new on eBay) on my helmet. Can't imagine needing any more light.
Here are several links which may prove useful and informative:
LED Bike Lights Shootout3
Bike Lights Shootout Light Meter Measurements
Lights Shoot Out - Beam Comparison
The last link above is especially neat, in that it provides a visual comparison of night-time photos taken under identical circumstances with illumination provided by a large selection of lights from different manufacturers. If I could afford it, the BR-C2-K (about $399US) looks like an ideal bar light. BR is reworking their line, and should have new model(s) out soon.
Here are several links which may prove useful and informative:
LED Bike Lights Shootout3
Bike Lights Shootout Light Meter Measurements
Lights Shoot Out - Beam Comparison
The last link above is especially neat, in that it provides a visual comparison of night-time photos taken under identical circumstances with illumination provided by a large selection of lights from different manufacturers. If I could afford it, the BR-C2-K (about $399US) looks like an ideal bar light. BR is reworking their line, and should have new model(s) out soon.
I have ridden with bar mounted systems for a while but I ended up switching to a clip on light which goes on my hat or helmet visor. I recommend this because when riding at night you actually have light wherever you decide to look rather than straight ahead only. And for riding in traffic at night it is invaluable because all you have to do is turn your head toward a car and they see your light beaming bright. It's a personal preference but highly affordable and now they even have some pretty high powered little buggers for pretty darn cheap. Or you can spend alot of money if you want. Depends really on which style you prefer. But I have found that this type of simple but very effective lighting system can be very handy and hope others will also....
A few more to look at, there's a copy of a recent review by MBUK on this website, odly enough the tigerlight took top "spot" for light v cost. www.tigerlights.co.uk but the review is useful even if you don't fancy the tigers!
I quite fancied the lumicycle lights but they're expensive, www.lumicycle.com
I have a Light and Motion HID, no complaints about the light it gives out but it conked out on me the one time i didn't take a spare. It was a long hairy ride home. I don't trust it now, just trying to choose an LED replacement now.
I quite fancied the lumicycle lights but they're expensive, www.lumicycle.com
I have a Light and Motion HID, no complaints about the light it gives out but it conked out on me the one time i didn't take a spare. It was a long hairy ride home. I don't trust it now, just trying to choose an LED replacement now.
Di Notte is the hot stuff around here now, and not just for night use. Since the LED taillight is bright enough to be seen on a sunny day from a few hundred meters back, a few veteran riders are using it all the time. Daytime taillights are particularly good in the winter months, when long shadows hit the roads by mid-afternoon, when it could be hard for a driver going west into the sun to see a cyclist in a shady part of the road. The other consideration is that the bright flashing red LED just might get the attention of a driver talking or texting on the cell phone. Considering that we live in a state where distracted drivers get away with hitting and killing cyclists, it's hard for me to argue against the cost of using one anymore.
Since battery lighting has been discussed at length here, I'll bring up my personal preference: generator lighting. It has many virtues, not the least being freed from the hassle of batteries, charging etc.
This page discusses the latest generator-powered options (as well as battery lights, but as I said ....)
Here is a page that illustrates beam patterns of the latest generator headlights.
This page discusses the latest generator-powered options (as well as battery lights, but as I said ....)
Here is a page that illustrates beam patterns of the latest generator headlights.
I think for the vast majority of road riders, as well as MTB'ers, battery powered lights are the best options, especially since they let you use the hub of your choice. Battery powered lights are now exceeding 900 lumens, and batteries are dead reliable. That battery powered lights are the go-to lights for 24hr MTB racing says a lot about their capabilities and illumination.
I had a 200 lumen road light, and frankly found it provided less than satisfactory power output, bur today's lights get the job done well. Here's a gallery of one maker's beam patterns. Very bright they are. Also, as important as it is to have plenty of light for navigating, it's just as important to have plenty of light so that driver's can see you coming from far away. That's why I prefer retina scorching lights.
One important thing to consider when buying LED lights of either sort--battery or generator driven--is whether or not that light is overdriving its LED's. It's well known that LED's typically have a long life, but what's not very often discussed is that life can be reduced dramatically by being overdriven (too much amperage, too much voltage,....). They don't get more efficient if they're overdriven. They're limited from the start by their quantum efficiency (how many electrons it takes to produce a photon). Overdriving them will actually cause them to be less efficient, as part of the LED, the junction, heats up. Also, as their overdriven, they shed more heat, thus the cooling fins you see on so many lights. It's better to find a well illuminating light that doesn't need cooling fins. With damage from being overdriven, the LED's will start producing less light, and the time will come when they won't produce switch on at all. For properly driven LED's, that's not a worry. Properly driven LED's can easily have lifespans in excess of 10,000 hours: that's over 416 days of non-stop light production.
As a happy bonus, properly driven LED's get longer burn times out of their batteries, everything else being equal.
I had a 200 lumen road light, and frankly found it provided less than satisfactory power output, bur today's lights get the job done well. Here's a gallery of one maker's beam patterns. Very bright they are. Also, as important as it is to have plenty of light for navigating, it's just as important to have plenty of light so that driver's can see you coming from far away. That's why I prefer retina scorching lights.
One important thing to consider when buying LED lights of either sort--battery or generator driven--is whether or not that light is overdriving its LED's. It's well known that LED's typically have a long life, but what's not very often discussed is that life can be reduced dramatically by being overdriven (too much amperage, too much voltage,....). They don't get more efficient if they're overdriven. They're limited from the start by their quantum efficiency (how many electrons it takes to produce a photon). Overdriving them will actually cause them to be less efficient, as part of the LED, the junction, heats up. Also, as their overdriven, they shed more heat, thus the cooling fins you see on so many lights. It's better to find a well illuminating light that doesn't need cooling fins. With damage from being overdriven, the LED's will start producing less light, and the time will come when they won't produce switch on at all. For properly driven LED's, that's not a worry. Properly driven LED's can easily have lifespans in excess of 10,000 hours: that's over 416 days of non-stop light production.
As a happy bonus, properly driven LED's get longer burn times out of their batteries, everything else being equal.
Well, that's a good question. A big hint is that if a light's festooned with cooling fins, it's probably being overdriven. LED's for bicycle illuminating purposes don't run hot. It's not like they're LED lasers which can need active or passive cooling. Operating temperature without cooling fins would be a good indicator.
If you want to know absolutely, then that requires a bit of digging that most people really don't want to do ( and I don't blame them). You'd have find out what the actual LED in use, in the light, is and what it's specs and performance parameters are.
On the upside, LED's keep getting cheaper and batteries keep getting better. I would expect in the next 10 years or so to start seeing small electronic devices powered by fuel cells. When that happens, you'll see lights that run for days without needing a generator (dynamo).
rowskein said:
I'm not an LED expert, so I'm not going to pontificate on the technology. What I can tell you is that the newest LED generator powered lights are out there being "tested" under the most rigorous conditions by long-distance cyclists. That is, they are being ridden through some extreme weather for long hours, rather than used for a couple of hours occasionally.
There are some very good battery-powered lights out there, that's for sure. But I -- and many other marathon cyclists -- prefer not to have the extra hassle and limited lifespan of batteries to deal with. Buy lights and generator and (barring total failure possible with any piece of hi-tech equipment) you're good to go for many years.
Weight: A Schmidt hub weighs between 61Og and 385g, depending on model (i.e. SON 28 or SON 20R)
Let's say you are a weight weenie and choose to go for the SON 20R with the Edelux headlight (85 g). Total weight is 470g (1.03lb). That's less than the battery weight of a L&M Seca 900 Ultra battery (system weight is 686g). Considering that a long-distance rider would likely need to carry an extra ($300) battery, weight we can conclude is not an issue with dynamo lights.
As far as light output, etc. let's just note that not all lumens are created equal so this measurement can be misleading Lumen quotes do not tell us much about the "kind" of light that gets put down the road. All I can say is that the light output from an Edelux light for instance is truly stunning. I can't imagine that that I could benefit from any more light. I can comfortably descend at 50+kph on unlit, narrow winding roads. Motorists will dim their headlights a kilometre away.
The Schmidt hubs produce a regulated 6 volts at 3 watts. Lights incorporate circuitry to prevent the overvoltage of the bulb. The Edelux has a bullt-in heat sink. I can attest that the light body does not heat up even after a full night of riding.
I do a 35km commute each morning. I used cheap Nightpro halogen lights that just didn't cut the mustard in output and battery life.
So I replaced them with Ayup Lights about 2 months ago. They cost more than I wanted to spend but now I couldn't be happier with their performance.
They are truly brighter than some cars. Drivers give way to you as they don't know whats coming. The battery life exceeds their run time. (We will see how they are going in 12 months). The lights are tiny (about the size of your thumb) and look sexy. The 3 hour batteries are also tiny (about the size of a match box).
The mounting systems are simple, light, bomb proof and effective. Some people complain about the mounts because they are so simple, they want more for the big $$$. I believe in the kiss method. In the kit you get what they call a gheko mount, This is a helmet mount for MTB. They also supply a headband.
Three spreads of light to choose from. I chose one spot and one intermediate. I am happy with this. I would choose the same again. I only road ride so I have both lights on the bars. I put them on an extender. The main reason for this it put them out front and I get no reflection from cables and stuff. The two 3 hour batteries (they supply a 6 hour as well) strap neatly & unobtrusively to each side of the stem. The switch is waterproof, simple and can be used with gloves.
When considering lights, nothing is more important than performance and these perform in spades. I'm sure some HIDs outgun these but they are superb. I can ride totally relaxed with the same confidence as day time. I can see every stone, nut or stick let alone larger obstacles.
If I had to buy more lights would I buy the same again? Without a doubt. If you want photos I will muck around and post them.
So I replaced them with Ayup Lights about 2 months ago. They cost more than I wanted to spend but now I couldn't be happier with their performance.
They are truly brighter than some cars. Drivers give way to you as they don't know whats coming. The battery life exceeds their run time. (We will see how they are going in 12 months). The lights are tiny (about the size of your thumb) and look sexy. The 3 hour batteries are also tiny (about the size of a match box).
The mounting systems are simple, light, bomb proof and effective. Some people complain about the mounts because they are so simple, they want more for the big $$$. I believe in the kiss method. In the kit you get what they call a gheko mount, This is a helmet mount for MTB. They also supply a headband.
Three spreads of light to choose from. I chose one spot and one intermediate. I am happy with this. I would choose the same again. I only road ride so I have both lights on the bars. I put them on an extender. The main reason for this it put them out front and I get no reflection from cables and stuff. The two 3 hour batteries (they supply a 6 hour as well) strap neatly & unobtrusively to each side of the stem. The switch is waterproof, simple and can be used with gloves.
When considering lights, nothing is more important than performance and these perform in spades. I'm sure some HIDs outgun these but they are superb. I can ride totally relaxed with the same confidence as day time. I can see every stone, nut or stick let alone larger obstacles.
If I had to buy more lights would I buy the same again? Without a doubt. If you want photos I will muck around and post them.
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