Bez – Member

“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

Just about useless for seeing where you are going to and if they are to bright they will annoy oncoming traffic and who wants them to wander onto your side of the road?
I bought a trail tech years ago and apart from me wrecking the batteries I have had no problems with their HID MR11, which are 650 lumens. Bought both the narrow and wide (flood) bulbs. Stopped using the flood immediately see no reason for seeing the cows in the middle of the field (nor them me). I actually read a prick on this site bragging about how his flood beam dazzled oncoming traffic who raised their headlights to him???? How does that help you see where you are going?
Trail Tech suppliers stopped making the 650 lumens HID bulbs the replacements are I think 1650 Lumens?? What the hell is that about? I want to see where I am going not the next county? As it happens they now sell an 800 lumen LED light, which I have bought but have not yet swapped, it supposed to be a narrow beam? I will be pissed if it isn’t. The fittings allowe you to turn the light to the side slightly. The best thing about decent lights is that cars dip there lights before coming round the corner very useful on unlit narrow rural roads.

PS I use the Hope vision 1 as a back up only 240 Lumens not terrible by any means although full power is a necessity on unlit rural roads. I use the NiMh hybrid batteries in it, as they never discharge themselves so are always ready for use.
PPS You might want to give the eBay led lights a look, very cheap lots of lumens and I noticed one which you could adjust the focus on? worth looking at.

Something like a Schmidt Son Delux hub and an Edelux light, does make some battery powered LED’s look cheap tho. not a big fan of the B&M lights which have plastic bodies, after my IQ Cyo decided to crack at the mount point although they did replace with a new one under warranty.

Flashing lights work brilliantly in traffic though, especially filtering up the middle of traffic. Can see it reflecting off roadsigns and that alerts the drivers who only ever use their rear view mirrors for checking their make-up.

I use one of these

its ok..never been flashed with it on. Good for general riding where occasionally there is no light and you want to see the potholes. (For miles and miles of country lane I would use something brighter.)

comes with charger and all that. Clip is a bit crap (I reveted adjustable bit in place)

about 20 quid

edit sorry for mahoosive pic 😯

crazy-legs – Member
and that alerts the drivers who only ever use their rear view mirrors for checking their make-up.

Someone was doing there makeup and chatting with there friend in a monster 4×4 at a traffic lights in the US. Decided I had better put myself in front of them so they wouldn’t cut me up when they turned right……..lights changed stopped with the make up but carried on talking and drove straight into me……….Tw*ts but no damage so…….. still tw*ts

I have one of smudges lights but have put tape accross the top part of the lense. This stops any light spill from the top of th elight but leaves the spot in place. You can see the cut off line up against walls etc and its also noticable when riding under trees etc. I certainly get seen with it and its more than bright enough to see pot holes and metal drain covers when riding.

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

Maybe, I’ve not read it in depth but knew there would be something. I’m assuming you judge speed by an object moving relative to it’s surrounding (think of the confusion when the train on the other platform starts moving). With a steady light you can do that but when it’s flashing your brain has much less info to work with. Add to that different flash speeds as well. A few cyclists coming towards you at different speeds with lights flashing at different frequencies is a complete ****.

Here are some beam shots of lots of road-specific headlights:

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/headlights.asp

I have the B&M Ixon IQ which is very good. It works well on the handlebars, but the beam pattern design means these lights really excel when mounted on the fork crown if possible.

Run a joystick on the bars on country roads, switching to low beam usually OK for passing cars but a bit of faff.

Was thinking of getting one of the beacon diffusser covers painting and cutting it to direct the beam better.

Hang on… Strada users, what model (year or ‘mk’) do you have?

Seems the 2010 (Mk1) dip beam is just a low-output setting for both LEDs; USE’s promo video from Interbike this year shows the 2012 (Mk3) dip beam is the same.

Some people are suggesting that their dip beam leaves the wide beam on full and switches the spot off. Is that the case? And if so, is that the 2011 (Mk2) model? It seems odd that they’d change back to the original approach for 2012…

Ive got the 2012 strada ans even on dip both led’s are on. Great light for the roafs though.

I have a Strada myself, works well although the remote switch is a bit hit and miss IME. Ay-Ups with intermediate beams work well to as they don’t throw much light up/sideways to dazzle on-coming drivers. This topic came up on BikeRadar to recently and someone posted a fairing they’d made for a ‘normal’ (MTB) light out of a beer can to use it on-road and cut down the flood, looked pretty neat to me.

I was riding along the road the other day with my maxx-D on my handlebars and on a low setting and I was still getting flashed by oncoming cars. I had it angled down as well!

The other problem was that the oncoming headlights combined with my low light setting meant that I couldn’t see where I was going and there were a good few potholes! Fortunately, I was on a mountain bike at the time:)

I know that some manufacturers do lights with a very focused beam pattern as a lens option. Take a look at Ay Up!http://www.ayup-lights.com/, Full Beam Ahead http://www.full-beam.com/buy.htm and Four4th http://four4th.co.uk/products/lights/.

They have different beam settings as well so that you can “dip” them if necessary.

Hope this helps

Regards

Paul

Mine’s a 2010 (old stock from the show) and both beams are always on. the remote button works flawlessly with gloves, and I was initially rather skeptical.

The 2010 and 2012 (Mk1, Mk3) I’m kind of clued up on – and I can wander up the road tomorrow and play with a Mk3.

The Mk2 is the one that’s got me a little curious. I’m not clear whether it behaves like the other two, or whether this one’s dip mode keeps the wide beam on full power and turns the spot off. And if it does do that I’m not really sure whether that would be better or worse… There’s going to come a time where even with the piggyback I’m going to need to ride through the night on dip beam.

(And although the Toro doesn’t have a traffic-friendly mode it has more flexibility when it comes to low-power modes, as well as more power when needed, and more battery… aaaaargh…)

A few cyclists coming towards you at different speeds with lights flashing at different frequencies is a complete ****.

Lol, absolutely. Yeah, you definitely know someone’s there…..working out where exactly they are or how fast they’re going is another matter.

The Mk2 is the one that’s got me a little curious. I’m not clear whether it behaves like the other two, or whether this one’s dip mode keeps the wide beam on full power and turns the spot off. And if it does do that I’m not really sure whether that would be better or worse… There’s going to come a time where even with the piggyback I’m going to need to ride through the night on dip beam.

Bez, I think I may have been mistaken in my description of how it worked. I haven’t used it for a little while and when I do I don’t make a habit of staring directly at it.
There are several others corroborating that it keeps both beams on but at lower power, I’d go with that consensus.
From a beam pattern perspective – on the lower setting it does look like a dipped headlight.

cheers,
Stu.

Ok, one more question for you Strada owners.

Rural road, pitch black… how useful is dipped beam? I’m concerned that it’s not going to have enough penetration to ride at a reasonable speed.

(Just been to check one out: high beam looks great; dip looks fine for urban “be seen” use; not convinced it’ll work for rural roads. If a long press on the button took you to a spot-only mode instead of stupid flashing mode, it’d be perfect…)

Bez,

This year on the London to Paris 24hr ride I rode through the night through rural unlit France on the dipped beam (the high beam wouldn’t have lasted all night). It was fine. On one stage I had my teammate and two others whose lights weren’t up to it drafting me so that they could see where they were going, this was through the darkest part of the night from mignight til 3am.

You can’t give it the full beans on downhills – for that you’d want the full beam – but for tanking along the flat and climbs it is sufficient.

My opinion is that a strada on dipped plus a joystick spot on the helmet would be pretty much the ideal combo for night time road riding. Really want to get a joystick myself for winter night rides.

The light lasted just under 8 hours on dipped with occasional full beam sections on the downhills, btw.

Hope this helps.

cheers

Stu.

How far are you planning on riding? I find that I use the full beam, in the dark, but can manage with dipped when needed (1hr commute max). To be honest, if I was paying FULL retail, the three fold price increase over the Cateye I listed above was NOT worth it. Look at the central beam patterns of the more focussed Cateye and Ixus lights and these are adequate in pitch black. What the Strada does is light up the surroundings.

I like the Strada, but it not the HUGE step up I expected from the Cateye for commuting duties. Off road, however, it is fantastic!

Depends how fast you’re going and what the road surface is like I guess. I’m happy with it dipped up to about 20mph on decent quality roads (that I know well) but over 20mph or on dodgy roads then I run it full as I find dipped isn’t quite enough to be confident. 30mph+ (downhill) then even on full I could use a bit more light but I figure it’s probably safer just to slow down a bit :p If they did a Maxx-D with Strada beams then I think that would be ideal…

Not convinced a helmet-mount light is wise on-road either, to me you’re almost guaranteed to be dazzling on-coming traffic with anything decent powered (and IME it’s pretty rare you’ll be doing sharp cornering in the way you do off-road so it’s not as essential to see around bends).

“This year on the London to Paris 24hr ride I rode through the night through rural unlit France on the dipped beam (the high beam wouldn’t have lasted all night). It was fine.“

Good to know. Oddly enough one of the reasons for getting a new light is 24hr French rides… did London-Paris 24hr last year too on the Joystick.

“My opinion is that a strada on dipped plus a joystick spot on the helmet would be pretty much the ideal combo for night time road riding. Really want to get a joystick myself for winter night rides.“

Mm. I’d never use a helmet light on the road, but I’m starting to wonder whether I should keep the joystick to work alongside a Strada.

“Hope this helps.“

Certainly does. Thanks.

“How far are you planning on riding?“

Well, I’ll be going all through the night in July. And training means doing a load of long rides this winter; I needed 6hr of lighting last week, and that wasn’t an especially long ride in this context and the clocks hadn’t even gone back…

So getting ~10hr of burn time is fairly crucial.

“If they did a Maxx-D with Strada beams then I think that would be ideal…“

Mm, unfortunately the Maxx-D is out of budget; the Toro is pretty marginal; the Diablo is doable, but run time without the piggyback is an issue.

I’m still on my old Lumicycles – the 12 degree angle one is for off road focus and road use whilst the 20 degree angle one is for off road use only (in their literature) although it is handy for alerting drivers that they’ve ‘forgotten’ to dip their headlights.

So getting ~10hr of burn time is fairly crucial.

I’d go for a SON/Edelux for about the same money. Beam pattern is probably a lot better optimized.

EDIT: Or you can add a piggyback battery pack for the Strada. But you won’t get 10hrs on main beam, even with doubled up pack.

Dynamo does seem your best option for rides that long, Strada + a couple of piggybacks is going to be pricey…

Already got a triple piggyback, so that’s not an issue.

A dyno is in my future, but not right now – I’ll need to use the light on at least four different bikes.

Anyone use the Lumicycle LED3Si?

Sod it – there’s a Strada on its way 🙂

Bit late in the day to come to this one but I have the Strada Mk2. Both bulbs stay on in dipped mode. Dipped is fine on dark rural roads up to 20mph or so as said above. The remote dip button is really very useful on the road (and can attach to the hoods for hands on thumb use).
If you’ve ordered the 2012 spec Mk3, the light is more powerful than the Mk2 I believe.

Yup, just a few more lumens.

For anyone who cares, dip beam drops the output of the spot to very low, but not off. The wide beam is on full power in both modes.

OP

Do you need a handlebar light for MTB as well?

If so get a Toro and use it on low for road riding. Well, that’s what exposure recommended to me as the beam pattern on the Strada is not ideal for offroad.

I use a joystick for road riding – don’t recall being flashed and I live right out in the sticks. It seems an ideal amount of light pattern small etc

Riding in a bunch of 4+ with everyone with a decent light on is quite amusing when we come across a car – they always pull over and stop – it either looks like a combine or a bunch of lamping nutters.

(We only see a couple of cars on an evening ride so it’s not causing a problem if it were busier it might come across as leery anarcho biker nonsense.

I ordered one of those cree torches that lightman posted a link to i think on 4th November – turned up yesterday from china… so 11 days – shame the bracket wasnt quite as quick! But a quick test in my garden with three AAA’s and **** me cant wait to start using this…

whers best place for the batteries (18650’s ) nowadays..??