Front lights - how many lumens ?

[Tenkaykev]

Preferably ride with the highest lumen you can get off aliexpress, with a reflector at the back and no cutoff. Make sure you set it to strobe on unlit off road cycle paths.

Asymmetric strobe is best especially when coupled with randomly varying intensities...

 

[a.twiddler]

Oh no. I just searched on the net for my old Hope Vision 1 and it's a tiny weedy impotent 215 Lumens.
And if it's an older model it'll be even less than that.
https://www.cyclestore.co.uk/hope_vision_1_led_front_bike_light-ID_17082

And I find that fine, I don't often use it on full blast which I always thought was pretty bright. Shows what I know.

Edit: I've just found another link that says 250 lumens which, while still inadequate, is a bit better. The problem is that it is built like a tank and I expect it to last for a long time yet.

Edit: I've found a road.cc review from 2015 which is about when I bought it (maybe slightly earlier)

Hope claim a pretty hefty 240 lumens on Max, which is a mighty whack of light. https://road.cc/content/review/31817-hope-vision-1-led-front-light​

See what inflation does for you. In 2015, 240 lumens was a mighty whack. Now it's an inadequate dribble.

Yes, looking back this thread comes up every Autumn. I remember the progression over the decades from the terrible lights of the 70s where even the top names were unreliable with short battery life, prone to vibration failures or just falling apart, though with the advent of plastics the reflectors got better, then Halogen bulbs, the first LED lights which were noted for long battery life rather than light output, then as technology improved bulbs were superseded as LED technology spiralled. In the early 2000s I had a Cateye EL 320 or similar and I was impressed, and replaced it with a similar one after I left the batteries in one summer without using it, and they leaked and damaged it. You just get so much more light for your money nowadays, and human nature being what it is, it's never enough.

Of course other road users have enjoyed advances in lighting too, from cars with 6v then 12v electrical systems, tungsten then halogen bulbs, HID then LED lighting. Still, car drivers have always been able to see where they're going reasonably well, but comparing the feeble glow worm technology available to cyclists when I started with what we have today, I'd say cycle lights have made far bigger advances because they started from such a low bar in the first place. If you look back ten years or more, you read about posters being delighted with tiny light outputs because it was such an advance on what went before, and in ten years' time readers will be making the same observations about us.

 

[e-rider]

1000 minimum for country lanes on a regular basis. Obviously less is acceptable if it's just a one off event.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

1000 minimum for country lanes on a regular basis.

So that’s why all the trees along the lanes are blackened and scorched.

 

[craigwend]