It's the fag end of the year again and the wife needs some lights. What are the suggestions? Max £200 and I was thinking of Airbikes from On One – http://www.on-one-shop.co.uk/acatalog/Airbike.html

or Ay-Ups:

http://www.ayup-lights.com/products/31/

Obviously open to other ideas you may have. Thanks in advance.

reviewed by stw member tiger lights are fantastic value and have an excellent run time

I have a pair of Aye Ups…they are the mutts nutts!
New accessories and packages coming out all the time, so plenty of choice. Can be used off the bike as well.

Awesome performance, great packaging and concept, great choice of colours etc…they rock my world and light my way quite nicely!

Ayup are lovely but the output's not really up to scratch these days. Once they get up to scratch with the newer LED options they'll be back to being a good choice though. It's a shame they've not been able to keep up.

It's a stock answer, but check out Dealextreme, their bike light is pretty similiar to the Airbike, except on cost.

To be fair, 'how much light' does one need to have fun?
If you can see 20-50m clearly, what else do you need? (Aye Ups give you way more than this !)

The tut and nonsense surrounding different binned LEDS is a load of tosh…(used to work for a high power / mega output LED light engine developer myself and the quality and reliability is better than final output.

Aye Ups use Cree, which are still pretty well up there for LEDS

To be fair, both products are very different concepts.
Am sure the Airbikes work well, but would imagine they get really hot, whereas the Aye Ups don't.

The designs and concept are both very different. It could be argued that Airbike are like an old style Lupine on the way the connectors work etc…….

Aesthetically, the Aye Ups must have the absolute edge?

How much light do you need? Not much at all really. But when you can get more for less, it makes sense to do so. It's a shame the DX light's power settings are such a mess, the low power is too low really and the SOS mode is worthless, it needs another "mid" setting to really take advantage of the platform. Big downside that I think. My torches are the exact same, great on full power but not much cop on low, so if you want a bit of light but not the atomic floodlight option, you're out of luck. Still, I'd sooner have the higher power options.

Northwind, so what your saying is that if you want to go for a long ride the dxs aren't any good?

No, not at all, just that they lack options… You might not always want full power, a light that can kick out serious light but also adjust down to, say, 400 lumens for a more mellow ride would be nice. (frinstance, we ended up riding a fair bit with the lights off tonight, makes for a totally different ride).

But the light's burn time on full power is still decent, 3 hours or so which is pretty average (and if you want longer, of course, you can buy about 8 of these lights for the price of a Light and Motion Seca or similiar Or rig up a battery pack of your own devising. It's also a shame they don't sell the battery seperate but that's not a big issue I think.

Northwind – is this the light you meant?

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.25149

Anyone else had any experience of On One lights or are they really no better than the above so shouldn't bother?

Still find the AyUps appealing but is she worth it?

I've had my Ayups for almost a year and have never felt underpowered or that they cost too much. You get a lot for your money, including excellent customer service. I just bounced mine off a tree and ovalised one of the lamps. Contacted them not expecting any help and they asked me to send them back for repair or replacement.

Nutty, yup, that's the one- though I use a pair of the torches, it's a similiar emitter though.

Lupine Betty

If moneys no issue, how about one of these beasts?

Buy 2 Fenix PD30 and a pair of twofish lockblocks to mount them on for under £100.

why not go for an exposure light – no cables and has a great mounting bracket.

I've got the Airbike light and the DX Bike light, and there are noticable differences, quite apart from the price. The Airbike has a very diffuse, 'flood' beam, with little discernable centre spot. The DX has a definite centre spot with diffuse outer halo, which is much better for trail riding. I've found the light settings on the DX to be OK, the lower setting perfectly adequate for riding local trails. And the 'SOS' is nothing of the sort, it's a standard flashing mode useful for urban commuting or road riding in dim light. I went out for an evening ride last week with the DX's on, got around five miles into the ride and cars were lighting up. Connected up and got a red indicator light. Futtocks! Stuck the lights on flash, carried on riding. Got to the pub, around four miles, had a pint, got to the next pub, in Lacock, had another pint. Put the light on low, rode five miles home on low, more than enough light for the Sustrans towpath from Lacock to Chippenham in the dark. Sure, you might not be able to DH with the low setting, but honestly, for the kind of riding most cyclists do the DX is as good as you could want, especially for the money.

Dealextreme bike light OR the Dealextreme torch – the one with 3 power outputs and flashing option plus the SOS option – high power is too bright, mid power seems to be spot on and low power seems to be fine for riding on the back roads.

The torch costs about £55-ish if you include charger, spare batteries (which you need as 1 will only last about 1.5 hours) and holder/mount.

The Dealextreme bike light carries 4 batteries so should last about 3.5 hours (probably more depending on which power setting you run and much less if you leave it on high constantly) – so you don't need to worry about changing batteries if you are out for more than 1 hour.

Trout has done a review of the Dealextreme bike light and reckons it is rather good for the price you pay.

How much biking is Claire going to do? I've had a spare light for some time and it is always available for use if you want to give it a bash to see if she likes it…I know you are happy to spend money on quality stuff if it is going to get used so find out if she is going to use it before you spend the readies…