i've just moved to north wales, and I'm riding things like the marin trail after work

at the moment i'm using a petzl head torch. pretty crap

any suggestions on a system? i like the idea of one on the bars and one on the head, but i have no idea wht kind to get and it's a long way to the nearest bike shop

thanks everyone, pierre

How much do you want (or are prepared to) spend?

This is a BIG can of worms, and you will hear all sorts of arguments as to what you should use, and how much you should spend. Long and the short of it is though that if you're careful/clever, you can get a lot of performance for relatively little money these days. Though you have to know what you're looking for. The easy way is of course just to walk into a bikeshop with £300 or more burning a hole in your back pocket!

I went: Petzl/overrated Petzl (melted)/Cygolite Halogen (20W)/Solstice HID/Hope 4 LED + On One Airbike over 12 years 🙂

It's a very popular topic with plenty of polarised opinions:
Bar/head/both
DIY/Bodged/Budget/Ludicrously expensive

if you can, borrow a set of good lights and see if you like them. You've mentioned the Petzl so I guess you already have the bug. IMO over 600 lumens is overkill – you can't really have too bright, but the brighter the light, the faster you can go and still be able to stop within the visible zone, until you reach daylight speeds where there's no further benefit!