I’ve been using a Joystick for road riding and frankly I’m getting a lot of flashing from oncoming traffic because half my lumens are ending up going anywhere but the road. This annoys drivers because they’re getting dazzled and it annoys me because half the contents of my battery are being jizzed away without doing anything remotely useful.

Is there anything out there that has a proper directional beam, ie not scattering half the light uselessly into the trees and into the eyes of oncoming drivers? (And which is bright enough to chop along at a decent pace and can, like the Joystick, be configured to keep running all through the night?)

Or has anyone ever tried making a hood? Or cutting a semicircle out of a headlight “beam bender” and sticking that on the front of a bike light?

Anything less bright (ie most road-specific lights) is not an option because it’ll mean having to ride too slowly.

Any of the light builders out there thinking of building something like this if it doesn’t exist? As a design reference, if the Joystick put all its output in the lower half of its beam circle, and stretched that circle a little wider, then it’d be about perfect: small enough not to get in the way, just bright enough (with the extra light being sent downwards), and with the option of 12 hours’ burn time with the external battery.

From what I can see, everyone mostly seems very keen to build lights that are powerful enough to melt trees at 100 yards for an hour and a half, but I don’t see anyone building a light which actually uses its power cleverly on the road.

Though I’d be very happy to be proved wrong 🙂

Exposure Strada

Linky

As above, Strada has a dipped beam function.

The Strada feels most at home on the road. Designed specifically for road riding, the Strada has a dipped and main beam function. Coupled with a remote switch, the Strada’s mode can be changed safely without taking your hands off the bars.

-wiggle

There is a philips one with a dipped beam, hang on and I’ll have look for it.

i’ve been thinking about this.

would it work to mount the joysick lower (fork leg) and mount another less bright light on the bars?

Hm, I’d spotted road.cc’s review of the Strada, where they say: “The Strada has two different settings: there’s the high setting which has a run time of about 3hrs and the dip setting which runs for around 8hrs. The dip beam is less intense generally, but especially in the centre.“

To me that reads (along with the fact that Exposure’s bumph tends to write “dip” in quotation marks) that the “dip beam” is just an easily-accessible low-power mode. Maybe it’s not, I dunno…

“would it work to mount the joysick lower (fork leg) and mount another less bright light on the bars?“

Er. No. To get the beam to reach the same point in the road it’d have to point at an even shallower angle, which would probably make the problem even worse. You’d get less bright illumination, too – though you’d see potholes and bumps more easily.

The philips one looks good, if a little expensive.

I use a Hope Vision 1, and on the 2nd of 4 power settings it is fine on the road, can go along at normal speed (15-25mph) and don’t seem to dazzle people unless I have it pointed to straight ahead. It did take a bit of playing with the angle to get a good balance between lighting enough of the road and not dazzling. If I get the angle just right, the beam is plenty good enough to see where I’m going on unilit country roads – similar to a car with dipped beam I would say – at least from my view point anyway.

The Philips one seems to be reported as not having great runtimes (eg here) – blowed if I’m stopping every hour and a quarter through the night to fish out a new set of batteries 🙂

The vision 1 lasts well over 3 hours on level 2 – never ridden it more than that without recharching so not sure exactly how long they would go. This is on 4x rechargeable 2700mAh batteries.

Don’t know if the option I use would work for you…?
Little blinky one on the bars (Exposure Flash) coupled with a high power one on the helmet angled down. This lights the road without dazzling drivers as the angle of the beam is greater (ie from higher up).
However it also leaves you the option of the car equivalent of an angry main beam just tilting your head back a few degrees to blind any muppet who might be tempted to cut you up. 😉

I have the Exposure Strada.
It has two LED lamps, one directional dipped beam and one flood type. Each is 300 lumens.

When operating on dipped mode you have just the dipped beam lit, when on full power you have both, giving 600 lumens.

I rode through the night in pitch black rural France on just the dipped beam and it was sufficient.

Supernova E3

“Don’t know if the option I use would work for you…?“

I hate flashing front lights with a passion, and wouldn’t use a helmet light on the road, so – er – nah 🙂

Angry Main Beam option is handy but I think I’d just end up applying it accidentally 🙂

“It has two LED lamps, one directional dipped beam and one flood type. Each is 300 lumens. When operating on dipped mode you have just the dipped beam lit, when on full power you have both, giving 600 lumens.“

Ah – that’s dead useful to know. Cheers.

So (trying to figure out how much benefit I’d get from my triple piggyback) the Strada must have either 2x or 3x the juice of the Joystick, which means on dipped beam with the additional triple I’d get at least 16 hours… or at least 6 hours on full beam…

Sounds good. I think we may have our winner.

B+M Ixon Iq

What’s that posh German make that are specifically for the road?
Bosch and something?????

I’ll go and get me google on

I think Strada on the bars on dipped plus a joystick on the bonce would be just about spot on for night time road riding.

There is someone on MTBR diy lights building a light using half a reflector from a crappy halogen 2D light.

Beam shots look like what you want if a little narrow.

Take a look:

http://forums.mtbr.com/lights-diy-do-yourself/build-thread-double-xm-l-road-lights-746967.html

I just got one of these and im about to get another 3 or 5+

Its very impressive, but i would recommend using 18650 battery’s with it for a longer runtime.
It took 1-2 weeks to arrive.
And the mount you’ll want for it.

Busch and Muller…..that’s the fellas

The cheapo “1200LM” DX model is great for the road. The beam is real tight.

I use a Hope Vision 2. Angled down so I get a good pool of light on the road. Haven’t been flashed yet.
And you know what: sod em! If they flash me, at least they’ve seen me and my light isn’t as bright as theirs!
You may hate flashing lights, but at least they get you seen – I know this because cars actually move over to give me room when I go down the left (slow traffic, I’m on a bike path before someone gets all up in arms). They don’t when I don’t have the flasher on (Ebay 5W light).

“And you know what: sod em! If they flash me, at least they’ve seen me and my light isn’t as bright as theirs!“

Yeah, but theirs is pointing down rather than horizontally. And frankly, I don’t like people driving at me deliberately keeping their main beam on. They may have seen me but if they’re doing that then I can’t see jack, so it’s more dangerous.

“You may hate flashing lights, but at least they get you seen“

Try riding for a few hours on rural roads with a flashing light without going completely insane…

Strata is a great bit of kit.
The dipped beam is created using a different lens that throws the light out in a horizontal direction rather than vertical.

It is fine to use on the road just using the dipped, but on darker roads the spot provides a nice clean light exactly where you need it.

I don’t get flashed by cars when using it, which is common with other lights, such as the Maxx-D. If a driver is flashing at you it is normally because you are dazzling them. If they can’t see ahead correctly then that is unsafe for you and them, surely not good practice?

I’m sure everyone else here hates it when an on coming driver doesn’t dip off main beams. Well riding with an undirected light would have the same affect.

It’s a bit late to the party but I did eventually find the web page that I saw on the philips light. It’s certainly got some niggles as far as run time is concerned but it looks ok for a commuter light.

mtbr phillips saferide review

Like various people said above, there are tons of road designed, bright lights made by euro companies. Mostly for dynamo hubs (which makes way more sense for commuting etc ), but they do make battery versions if you really want them. They’re designed to German light regulations which limit how much light is wasted upwards shining into driver’s eyes.

The busch and muller ixon as mentioned above should be easily bright enough – I’ve gone 40mph or more on unlit roads on my b+m which is the less bright old version. For silly bright lights, supernova make ones that are bright enough for off road even (people do 24 hour races with them ).

If you don’t run a dynamo hub, you’re missing a trick too – bright light, with infinite run time, and un noticeable drag.

“If you don’t run a dynamo hub, you’re missing a trick too – bright light, with infinite run time, and un noticeable drag. “

Yeah, the next bike (or maybe just next set of wheels) will have one – at least unless it has discs.

But is there any dyno lamp that kicks out as much light as a Strada? (I thought the B&M was a little below Joystick territory, though what evidence – if any – I based that on I forget.) I guess the ideal would be to have a dyno hub wired into the back of a Strada to keep it topped up, though I’ve no idea what voltages are involved…

Try riding for a few hours on rural roads with a flashing light without going completely insane…

I don’t have just a flasher, except in poor light. It’s there as a backup.
The only time I used just a flashing light (L&M Stella) cars thought it was a cop/ambulance coming and moved over into my path 😯

Any amount of flashing would drive me nuts, even if it wasn’t the only light. YMMV.

(And as a driver I hate them too.)

that strada nearly costs more than my roadbike! 😯

Lumicycle does a light specifically for the road – ‘The LED3Si has a penetrating beam perfect for riding at any speed on the road. The beam wont annoy oncoming drivers but will make them very aware of your presense.’

Link

Never seen one, but it looks to have a sort of eyebrow thing to limit high level output? I was actually thinking about hacking a similar set-up for my standard Lumi head unit using Sugru or even some thick curved plastic sheet and fixing it on with HD Velcro so it can be stripped off quickly for off road use.

I’ve got an B&M IQ Fly and for road use I think the beam, although narrow, is spot on. It cuts off with a square edge at the top, but is still a tall enough beam to illuminate signs way off & give a decent flood near the wheel, without dazzling drivers. First light I found that made drivers dip actually dip their headlights.

road.cc did a fairly comprehensive review recently:

http://road.cc/content/news/46538-big-roadcc-lights-test-data

In particular, see the note at the end about Germans.

I’ve not tried the Lumicycle 3Si (although it is featured in the above comparison and the beam pattern doesn’t look very square). I don’t think the hood is going to do much good in reducing stray light – it would need to be several times the width of the light in length to get any reasonable cut-off.

I’ve got two old Lumi halogens converted to XPG LEDs. I run one at 870mA, heavily dipped, and the other horizontal at 1000mA as a “full beam” with a remote to turn it on and off.

This set up works very nicely, although it would be better if the beam from the “dipped” one were better focused.

That Lumicycle beam shot does look unconvincing doesn’t it. I’ve tried the dual-light thing and it confuses me probably because I have only a very limited number of brain cells…

I’ve got a son hub with the edelux light and it’s much better than anything I’ve tried for road riding.
it’s on a commuter/audax bike.if I could afford/justify it then I’d have one on the brompton,maybe one on the mtb.
Schmidt make a disc mount hub too.
the troutlight I’ve got is brighter.but unless trout makes a fresnel attachment to focus the beam for the road,then I can’t really use it.
It’s excellent for trails though.I’d been meaning to write him an email regarding a road attachment,like those focusing lenses i’ve seen for other lights.but designed for the road,I haven’t seen any.
maybe I could fit the trout inside an aftermarked headlight and have a 5″ light on a road bike.I think it would look pretty good.chrome.

Good beamshots over on peterwhite’s site.

You may hate flashing lights, but at least they get you seen – I know this because cars actually move over to give me room when I go down the left (slow traffic, I’m on a bike path before someone gets all up in arms). They don’t when I don’t have the flasher on (Ebay 5W light).

Flashing lights are a *bad idea* – they make it very difficult to judge speed and direction of travel. http://www.uctc.net/papers/667.pdf I almost rode into someone the other day in the the other day as they were travelling much faster than they appeared.

They’re possibly better than a steady light at dusk, when they draw attention to you but you can still be seen without the light to judge speed of approach, but not good once the light is the only thing you see.

I have last year’s Strada, with remote dip switch. Bought at the NEC bike show. It has replaced a nice Cateye 1W LED.

To be honest it pumps out a lot of light, but the beam pattern on the Cateye was more focused on the road and was perfectly acceptable in pootly lit areas. The Strada was really for the lanes and off-roading. Mine does NOT dip to 1 LED, but lowers the output of both.

Son 1 rode with me around Swinley yesterday using the Cateye and got on OK with background lighting from me. A helmet light will be next. My next commuting light will be a SON/Edelux, but I wanted something for off roading this time.

EDIT: Looking at the reviews here shows that the peak LUX is about the same for the Cateye, Ixus and Strada. My shop in Oxford loved B&M lights but refused to stock the Ixus due to reliability. The Cateye rep came in, threw the light up to the ceiling and picked it up off the floor. Several times. And there was no breakage. Try that with the Ixus and you will need a brush!

“Flashing lights are a *bad idea* – they make it very difficult to judge speed and direction of travel.“

Ooh. I shall check that link later. I’ve always though from my own perception that flashing lights make it really hard to judge motion – I assume that document is Made of Hard Fact and will concur 🙂