Lights for training at night

The Noble Nudge

Sound Lumen thanks for the advice,

I am only going by the description on the website and the review on the link you posted.
"The New fluxient light comes with a 8800mAh battery giving between 2.7hours and 10 hours run time depending on the power level chosen. There are 4 different functions, High, Medium, Low and SOS flash. With its click button located at the back light the magicshine MJ-872 it is easy to flick through the functions whilst on a ride!"

I've never cycled at night so just researching because I will be this winter.

07Lapierre

Lumen wrote: »

The ideal road lights have just enough light for you to see the road and no more, and either have a dip function (the Exposure Strada is the only one I know of) or don't need dipping because they have either a focused, narrow round beam (e.g. Exposure road lights like the Joystick) or a sharp horizontal cut off (e.g. Philips LED, B&M).

If you have too much light your eyes won't adjust properly to the darkness and you'll get tunnel vision.

I would have thought having more light would prevent tunnel vision no? As for Dipping the lights, having the light angled down (and to the left) towards the road will prevent oncoming traffic from being blinded.

Lumen

07Lapierre wrote: »

I would have thought having more light would prevent tunnel vision no?

If you brightly illuminate the road in front of you, the bits which are not illuminated (e.g. side junctions or road features further ahead) will be harder to see because your eyes will not properly dark adapt.

07Lapierre wrote: »

As for Dipping the lights, having the light angled down (and to the left) towards the road will prevent oncoming traffic from being blinded.

Depends on the light. Look at the beamshot I posted here - how are you going to adjust that to avoid blinding traffic? If you point it right down, you'll end up with a massive bright spot in front of your wheel. What use is that?

Lumen

The Noble Nudge wrote: »

Sound Lumen thanks for the advice,

I am only going by the description on the website and the review on the link you posted.
"The New fluxient light comes with a 8800mAh battery giving between 2.7hours and 10 hours run time depending on the power level chosen. There are 4 different functions, High, Medium, Low and SOS flash. With its click button located at the back light the magicshine MJ-872 it is easy to flick through the functions whilst on a ride!"

I've never cycled at night so just researching because I will be this winter.

There are a few Magicshine reviews on this thread:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055705708

Read it all, it's good for you :pac:

07Lapierre

Lumen wrote: »

If you brightly illuminate the road in front of you, the bits which are not illuminated (e.g. side junctions or road features further ahead) will be harder to see because your eyes will not properly dark adapt.



Depends on the light. Look at the beamshot I posted here - how are you going to adjust that to avoid blinding traffic? If you point it right down, you'll end up with a massive bright spot in front of your wheel. What use is that?

As you point out, it depends on the light. I'd also argue that its not necessary to have the right hand side of the road in complete darkness to avoid blinding oncoming traffic. Once the "Main beam" is pointing slightly to the left, in most cases this will be sufficient.

Lumen

07Lapierre wrote: »

As you point out, it depends on the light. I'd also argue that its not necessary to have the right hand side of the road in complete darkness to avoid blinding oncoming traffic. Once the "Main beam" is pointing slightly to the left, in most cases this will be sufficient.

Sure, for a decent focused light that's fine. My post was in response to a question about the flood-monster on the last page.

There is the other issue of the road directly in front of the wheel. If you get something too throwy (this is from experience, I once bought the "world's most throwy flashlight"), you get great illumination up ahead and nothing in front of the wheel. Arguably if you haven't spotted the sink-hole 20m away see it 2m away is going to be pointless anyway, but having a brighter light makes this worse for the reasons I've outlined.

Beasty

Lumen wrote: »

The RAI team I crewed for a couple of years ago used a variety of lights including Exposure and Ayup. Their favourites were the Ayup.

Wha????

Anyway, I've used Exposures on long winter commutes (on dark country roads;)) for some time. I've come to the conclusion that the Maxx D is more than I need, but you can direct it in such a way that avoids blinding oncoming traffic (unlike one of the RAI riders I saw who had it pointing virtually straight ahead;)). By directing it in this way you are effectively not benefitining from a lot of its power. I'm therefore using the Exposure Race this winter - two horizontal units (similar to the Strada) rather than the 4 in the Maxx D - again it needs to be directed correctly, but it's a great light.

The one thing I would say about the Exposure lights is they are very sturdy - the Maxx D lasted 3 winters before losing one of its units - the other 3 still work fine).

When it gets properly dark I'll be supplementing it with a Joystick on the helmet - again alignment is important. I use it mainly for pothole/hazard spotting and make sure it is pointed downwards and slightly to the left when in the normal riding position

Jonathan

The Moon X300/Shield combo set I ordered from Wiggle arrived yesterday. Fitted them to the bike and took it for a short 10km test spin on both lit and unlit roads.

I was very impressed with the light output. While I wasn't out long enough to determine battery life, blinking mode is more than enough for well lit roads, which allows you to keep high power mode for unlit roads. The brackets seem sturdy too. That said, the lights are so small/light that the brackets don't have much work to do. :pac:

Looking forward to be able to head out over the winter mid-week when the clocks go back.

_Skitso_

07Lapierre wrote: »

Just tried out my new light for the first time last night and all i can say is WOW!. Yes its expensive, but it does the job very well. Its bright, bloody bright!.

Very happy with it.

Lapierre, How do you find your light since purchase? Was thinking of ordering one of these! Wich battery pack/s came with your order? Lastly, how is it on the road? Speaking as a total newbie to this but is the beam too wide?

The exposure Strada is my other option, mainly because the beam looks a bit straighter and brighter infront of the bike. Any advice here appricated.

Hope i don't get slatted for thinking about spending this sort of money on a light but had a cheap set bought for me and just didn't feel safe while out with it on unlit roads. So going to go the whole hog (Hopefully). As for wheel builds and dynimo stuff, simply don't understand enough about it, as I said I'm new to all this cycling jargin.

Thanks.

07Lapierre

_Skitso_ wrote: »

Lapierre, How do you find your light since purchase? Was thinking of ordering one of these! Wich battery pack/s came with your order? Lastly, how is it on the road? Speaking as a total newbie to this but is the beam too wide?

The exposure Strada is my other option, mainly because the beam looks a bit straighter and brighter infront of the bike. Any advice here appricated.

Hope i don't get slatted for thinking about spending this sort of money on a light but had a cheap set bought for me and just didn't feel safe while out with it on unlit roads. So going to go the whole hog (Hopefully). As for wheel builds and dynimo stuff, simply don't understand enough about it, as I said I'm new to all this cycling jargin.

Thanks.

I've only tried it once so far. Its not dark enough yet on my regular commute, so I haven't had to use it in traffic. I tried it one evening last night on a dark, unlit rural road and its bright! very bright!. Yes the beam is wide. Its bright enough to light up the complete width of a rural country Road. It would blind oncoming traffic it it was mounted in a "forward looking" position. To avoid blinding traffic I've remounted it under the handlebars and i have it tilted down slightly towards the ground.

There are 3 settings, bright, Very bright and Bloody Bright! I've only used Very bright so far!

It comes with two batteries (as per the photo on CRC).

there is a slightly cheaper one, which comes with one battery only. According to CRC, you should get 2.5 hours on Max setting or up to 25 hours on the lower setting.

rdhma

There's a 900 lumen Magicshine clone available here for €37, though you could be hit for a bit more by customs.
http://dx.com/p/ssc-p7-3-mode-900-lumen-led-headlamp-bike-light-set-4-18650-50947
They take their time with shipping.

Note that it takes 4-8 times more light intensity, depending on beam angle, to be perceived as twice as bright, thanks to the characteristics of the human eye, so super high rated lights aren't always as impressive as you might think.

macnab

Jonathan wrote: »

The Moon X300/Shield combo set I ordered from Wiggle arrived yesterday. Fitted them to the bike and took it for a short 10km test spin on both lit and unlit roads.

I was very impressed with the light output. While I wasn't out long enough to determine battery life, blinking mode is more than enough for well lit roads, which allows you to keep high power mode for unlit roads. The brackets seem sturdy too. That said, the lights are so small/light that the brackets don't have much work to do. :pac:

Looking forward to be able to head out over the winter mid-week when the clocks go back.

I just took delivery of the same set today. I grabbed my Cateye Uno and headed for the attic. The difference in the two lights is huge. Even at its lowest setting (60 Lumens) the Moon 300 makes the Cateye Uno look weedy.
In fact the Moon Shield rear light at its lowest setting (20 Lumens) probably gives out more light than the Cateye Uno.

_Skitso_

rdhma wrote: »

There's a 900 lumen Magicshine clone available here for €37, though you could be hit for a bit more by customs.
http://dx.com/p/ssc-p7-3-mode-900-lumen-led-headlamp-bike-light-set-4-18650-50947
They take their time with shipping.

What do people think of headlamps? Any pros or cons for headlamps over bar mounted?

Does anyone here have the exposure strada and how do you find it?

Thanks!

cdaly_

_Skitso_ wrote: »

What do people think of headlamps? Any pros or cons for headlamps over bar mounted?

Does anyone here have the exposure strada and how do you find it?

Thanks!

Pro:

• You can point the light at a specific bit of road to better see dodgy surface
• You can point the light at a driver to attract their attention / suggest they dip their lights
• You can point the light at you garmin to see how fast you're going.

Con:

• They're heavy

I wore a Fenix TK11 (250g) on my helmet over the last two winters and it would drag the helmet forward. I've recently got a Fenix E11 (60g) for helmet mounting and have moved the TK11 to the handlebars.

_Skitso_

Ok thought I had this sorted when I bought a exposure strada mark 4. But....light arrived and didn't work, long story short the light is on its way back to store, if they find it doesn't work which they will I'll be getting a replacement, brilliant. But....they don't have them back in stock till mid November, so I have been offered the strada Maxx-d mark 4 at the same price, or wait.
What I'm wondering is, is the Maxx-d more of a off road light? Does anyone have one and how do you find it?
Thanks
Skit