Lights for dark lanes

[Cope]

Just been to LBS to look at new bike. Obviously need some lights. Was astonished to see lights for £85.00 (Cateye 10000 candle brightness) and even more. I can't remember what I used to use, but I'm sure they were nothing like as expensive as that.

Much of my riding will be along country lanes in the dark, so being able to see is important. What are folk using? Can I have some advice before I spend my money, as I didn't feel a great deal of confidence in the bike shop people?

Thanks,

S.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

I use a dynamo system, Lightspin bottle dynamo and Busch & Mueller stanlights front and rear, plus LED backup lights at both ends. The dynamo lights are fantastic for allowing you to see where you're going, while the LED lights will help to make you visible to other traffic. The downside is you'll spend a lot on a good dynamo setup; the upside is it's always ready to go once installed, and you'll never need to worry about batteries.

 

[Chuffy]

Depends what you want really. If you want lights for in town, just to be seen by, then £20 will sort you out. For dark lanes (which is most of my commute) then you need to scale up a bit.

You can use the new generation of 3w LED torch (like this Nightfire) or you can invest in a decent rechargable set.

If I were you I'd spend an afternoon searching this forum for similar 'which lights?' type threads. What you don't want to do is buy something that isn't up to the job and end up having to buy something else later.

 

[Steve Austin]

Depends what you want the lights for: to see or to be seen?
Lights to be seen can be bought for less than £20 front and rear.
Lights to see, anything from a tenner up to £600

I use a cateye rear that cost about a tenner, with additional tesco mini lights that cost £4 each.
Front lights: Cateye doubleshot that cost about £100, plus a tesco cree torch, that cost a tenner. the tesco torch is the best cheapest front light to see with, but its been dis-continued. I can ride woodland at night with my lights, so that may be too much for your needs.

 

[Steve Austin]

that ultafire is just like the tesco light. good enough to see with!!

You'll need another light to run it with though, as it has no side illumination. You could always use a cheap flashing knog or something similar

 

[Cope]

Thanks for the quick responses - I'll see what I can find on the forum archive. I currently have a very bright 5 LED light that is on a strap that I put on my head - that provides decent light. That ultrafire looks to be good too, if it's easy to attach to the bike.

Historically I've used a dynahub on the front wheel, but that's going to cost me £150.00 to have a wheel made up. Not sure how much I'd spend on batteries in a year...

I guess it'd be dark for 4 months a year when I ride, and I'd ride for at least 2 hours a day, 3 or 4 days a week. So that's say 8 hrs a week for 12 weeks - about 100 hrs. Any idea what that translates to in battery life?

 

[Young Un]

Rechargeables??

 

[gratts]

2x Tesco 3W LED Torches. £15.something for the pair. Crazy bright for the money.

Not sure about the discontinued, my local Tesco homeplus claimed they were "New - just in!"

 

[Young Un]

yh for 125 quid you could get 10 of them - now that would give you some serious light!

Steve

 

[BentMikey]

Tesco 3W AA torch plus twofish lockblocks to mount them. (Or you could get teh Fenix L2D, which are very similar, a little better but a lot more expensive than the tesco.)

 

[Young Un]

I haev one AA and one C which I find works well.

Steve

 

[andrew_s]

The advantage of dynohub lighting is that it's always there, with no bother about remembering to charge the batteries or take the light with you.
Cost is £170/£100/£70 depending on best/good/cheap hub.

For a recent high power LED light running at full power, battery life is about an hour per AA if the driver circuit is 100% efficient. 100% efficient doesn't happen, so it's generally more like 45 minutes. If you get a longer life than that, it's running at a lower power. The other problem is that alkaline batteries won't give their full capacity under high power drain.
If you are running something like a Fenix L2D or a Hope Vision 1, you should expect that 100 hours of full power light will use 200 duracells. Both of these lights are what I consider to be bright enough running at half power.

The obvious answer to this is rechargeable AAs. These cost £4-£11 per set of 4, depending on type and where you buy them. Then there's the cost of a charger on top - £10 for a basic one. If you want the rechargeables to last well, you should spend a bit more on a charger that will cope with odd numbers of batteries rather than charging them in pairs only, and charge the batteries well before they are flat the first 2 or 3 times.

Note that the Tesco 3W AA torch has a narrow body, and many brands of rechargeable batteries don't fit in.
(One of the ways of getting a higher capacity is to make the battery a bit bigger)

 

[DaveP]

Cope,

I run on rural B roads, and these http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/Cycle/7/NiteRider_MiNewt_X2_LED_Front_Light/5360031093/ do me fine, a longer lasting battery would be my only gripe.

All the best

 

[HJ]

For a review of last years lights suitable riding will be along country lanes in the dark see here, the review of this years must have lights is expected soon...

 

[SoulOnIce]

My commute has a 10 mile stretch on very dark country lanes. 2 of the Tesco 3W lights mounted using a lockblock does the trick for me. The illumination is good enough for me to pedal as fast as I want without worrying about not being able to see in front of me.