Started off with a HID – was good but flickered on rough ground 🙁

Cateye triple shot – crap on the bars, too heavy to helmet mount

Then a hope vision twin (version 1)

Fenix torch – excellent, simple and bright

Hope vision twin version 2 – simple and great when helmet mounyed. Sold to finance a Exposure race max.

tesco torch – heavy and shite

Now got a niterider minewt x2 – this is way brighter than a tesco torch and not far off the brightness of the vision twin mk2. Great beam pattern and depth. Well recommended.

DX 900 lumen light en route so will have a go with that on the bars and helmet to see whats what.

The niterider stays tho – tiny, bright and ace!

Lumis-great

Rush HID, bright but tempremental

L&M Arc Ultra HID, great, pricey bulbs though.

Lupine Betty, superb.

I have lumicycles, MC-E torch (very similar to the P7 torch).

The lumicycles are nice and the backup when I broke bits was great, but they are completely outclassed in convenience and package by the torch. Not too heavy, so just stick it on the helmet, and go, plus very cheap spare batteries is a big bonus.

Joe

trout light (last years)faultless looks indestructible and like carrying daylight round with you. Matched to a lummi battery very impressive run times.

lumis for offroad with a 25 and 15 watt set up….awesome with endurance battery.
hope single thing for commute with a fenix to dazzle cars……. 8)

and a order in for the all singing all dancing trout light, just to see how good they are like…….

I have tried-

2xtesco torches – not bright enough for countryside road commute let alone MTBing. Short battery life, heavy,

DX combo – lightweight 2-3 hr spot on head, stays on for ride & a pair of 600 lm torches. one brighter than the other comes on for downhills, the other one lasts 2 hrs and can stay on most of the time, get knocked to low for slow road climbs.

Nightsun team max but the battery didn't last very many cycles.

Ay-ups. Fan-flippin-tastic. Weight, run time, looks, enough light for me.

L&M Seca 700, brighter than the L&M HID it replaced and a better beam pattern, also, according independantly verified tests on the L&M website it actually puts out the claimed number of lumens, unlike some other brands.
http://www.bikelights.com/images/test_data/2009_test_data_summary.pdf

I've got roughly the same setup as Ton. Lumi Halogen 12w spot and 20w Flood with the enduro battery. 6hrs+ of lovely, natural coloured light, way nicer than LED light in my opinion. On the wee farm roads that I take to the trails, the light cast is powerful enough for drivers to think I'm a tractor and pull over. In one case a car actually reversed up a hill to get out of my way! 😈

The only real downside, and it's becoming increasingly more common as my fitness increases, and the lights 'arms race' heats up, is that I'm finding my Lumi's completely overpowered by the super powerful lights of those on the trail behind me. I think of nightriding as a completely different, more challenging creature than daytime riding. I don't actually want to bring the daytime with me. 🙄

B. 🙂

year before last i used my diy 3x3w led which was great , i then went for an exposure enduro turbo on the bars and a joystick on the helmet

this year i now have my exposure enduro turbo on the bars and my newly arrived yet to try hope vision 4 on the helmet

im not sure but from reading reports i may want to put the hope on the bars and get a more spotty type light for the helmet. shame the enduro turbo isnt helmet mountable ;-(

i shall see how they go next week on my first night ride with it 😉

i still use the joystick on the road to annoy cars

I have the light and motion arc ultra-lion and really rate it but haven't tried it on proper off-road – just canal paths and road riding.
Only downside for me is the lead – I 'm sure that all in one lights are the way to go

DX MTE P7 on the bars – excellent, though had to re-solder a dodgy connection.
Thought about another one as a headlight but bought a DX TR-801 instead as it's much smaller and lighter than the P7. Surprised how bright it is but may swap the smooth reflector for an orange peel one.

Started out with Smarts (10w/2.4w combo) – good enough at the time 'til people started getting HIDs. Lead acid battery weighed as much as the bike and the flexi mount gave an odd strobing effect to the lights going down anything fast.

Moved on to Marwi Nightpro things, 2x20w bars and 20w helmet. Built my own new batteries to overvolt them all to 28w.

Replaced the MR11 in one the the head units on the bars with 3xCree Q5s running at ~700mA. This was brighter than the 2x28w halogen so I dispensed with the other lamp head.

Replaced the MR11 with 3xCree R2s running flat out in my helmet light. This was chuffing bright but cuts out on warm evenings on slow techy stuff. It's a good winter light but not much good for Autumn/Spring. I've got a good thermal connection to the lamp head but there's not much metal to a Marwi lamp head and it's small, smooth and bullet-shaped. It just can't shift enough heat to protect the LEDs. As it is now it's putting out a tad less light than the Q5s so I've obviously done some permanent damage to the LEDs.

At the moment I'm toying with replacing the helmet light but can't decide whether to:
~ replace like-for-like but run less current (and a controller with temp protection)
~ get a DX bikelight (possibly with a LUU spot filter)
~ get a LUU kit from on*one – I'll dither 'til they put the price up. 😕
~ get a troutlight and put a spot optic in my Q5s for the helmet.

Tried various topeak etc LEDs to start – Pants.
Knightlight 5W 10W Halgens – Ok at 1st but batt was pants.
BLT 21ne – Good to start but faded. Modded with P4 – Ok in Tesco torch kind of way.
Niteflux Photon Max – briliant on helmet but not floody enough for bars. Then it died. Got a refund.
Tesco torch. Good bright torch but too heavy so has never been used as a bike light.
Cateye Tripleshot (Got for a steal)- It's ok but not quite bright/floody or focussed enough to be used in isolation. Modded with P4s it's not a bad light but optics could really be better. I still use it on the bars.
Hope 4 – Great bright and floody light with fantastic run times. Best on the bars but mine's on my helmet at mo. The mounts sticks up a bit far but overall fantastic.
DX light – had a "it's only 50 quid what the hell" moment last week so will let you know when it gets here.

Rush HID fantastic light, but battery heavy and large by today's standards and it's temperamental.

Use Hope vision 1 for summer rides and commuting, fine for what it is but not a proper night ride light.

Will probably get Ay-ups or similar this year

Started off with a 6v sla pack botched to run a mixture of bot and vistalite lamps, then a lumi set up which was replaced by a rush hid – good but not as nice as the l&m hid that came next
went back to lumis for a while before taken the plunge with led lamps.
A custom 3x r2 was very good until I discovered troulights! He made me a 2x r2, 2x mce which was incredibe – am now running a troulight 6 led and can't wait for the xpg version

Lupine Edison 5 – Great light but expensive to maintain

L&M Arc – Good set-up but not as bright as Edison, expensive to maintain

On One LED Airbike – Good for the money but dispapointing beam, also hassle to switch through modes.

Lupine Betty 14 – Great light but mega expensive, unless bought on Cycle to work (mine cost me around £280)

DX Torch (Helmet mounted) – Great light if money is an issue

Have tried some homemade lights with 3 Leds and have been very impressed, looking forward to Trouts 6 LED with excitement 😉

Started with Lumi halogens – 20-watt flood, 12-watt spot, which did the job but had limited burn time.

Upgraded to a Lumi HID with Li Ion battery – bright, fragile in the sense that the bulb can break if you drop it wrong and costs 80 odd quid to replace. Burn time good, but no high/low energy economy options. Halogen spot on head.

Now, Cutter quad in Lumi halogen can / Cutter triple in same on bars, Joystick Maxx on helmet. Versatile and effective. I figure the home-build cost-savings on the bar lights, which are fantastic btw, justify splashing out on the Joystick, which is a very neat, single-unit solution. Run the Joystick with a Piggyback battery for solo racing.

Generally run spot on head plus loads of light on bars. Obviously I don't 'need' that much light, my old Lumi halogens were perfectly adequate, but lighting is like a nuclear arms race – the brighter your mates' lights get, the more you need to avoid riding into the night riding equivalent of Mordor whenever someone's behind you…

Next stop, three Cutter quads, two in Trout housings on the bars, one Lui can with added RC motor heatsink on the helmet.. That should do it, for a while :-/

Smart 10w/2w – seemed great but was rubbish.
Niterider – broke.
Lumi 12/20w halogen – lasted well and did what it said on the tin
Lumi Trout LED conversion – £50 and is very good, now my backup light
DX P7 – Also £50, great beam, plenty bright enought 3hr + runtime.

Blackburn X6

To this

and a whole load of Diy stuff
to hopefully
these If I can keep a couple for me

Got AyUps last year, not mega bright but plenty bright enough for blasting around the woods, SIT's and riding straight through the night.

Exposure lights are awesome. Love my joystick.

Vistalite – Not very bright and piss poor run time.
Niterider minewt x2 dual – okay but not enough light on their own and run time not great. Also broken and been repaired twice under warranty. Got my money back the last time but they insisted on sending me the repaired lights back.
DX '900 lumen' torch – great light for the money, used as a helmet light, but has its drawback. Built it up with a dummy cell and smudge battery.

Also tried fenix torches as I wanted a decent torch for camping anyway. Could easily get by with 2 of them.

Trouts light is coming soon though and this should keep me happy for a while. Will probably stick a fenix torch on my helmet for repair situations.

Most of my night riding is done on my commute so I've been on a long path to find something that works well.

Started with a set of borrowed smart lights (crap but did the job for first time night riding), then a set of lumis (not bad), then a Rush HID5 (very good light but occasionally tempermental) now using a Fenix l2d on helmet and a lumi 35W halogen on the bars but over volted to about 16V that gives silly amounts of really nice light (and a LOT of heat) for about 20 min so for DHs only.

Got a P7 DX torch on order so waiting to see what that's like

would really like a trout light

smart 2.4 and 10 (like many) – great strobe effect

Knightlight 5 and 10w – battery pish – lights lots better than smarts

Dinotte twin liion 5w – great lights – have passed them onto the missus

Just ordered exposure Maxx D and joystick combo for relentless having used other folks

I have also used Lupine passubio, edison(cut out and stopped working while i was riding along) twin minewts ( i thought the opposite to the guy above and that they were completely pish and under powered for the cash) Hope 4led , hope 2 led , cat eye r2 and double shot (good as a helmet light)

originally lots of eveready battery lights strapped to the front of a SCOTT AT-4 in the early 90's (entertaining and rather bloody scary, both the bars and teh crap lights)

Then discovered more entertaining things to do in the evenings such as drink, drugs and rock n roll.
Gave all that up to be a clean living boy and then got;

blackburn X8 lovely looking lights spoiled by a big gumpy battery, but work well as a helmet light for now

Levin 24W HID, good battery life and lights up half of staffordshire (may end up as my helmet light as I've got a pair of DX lights comming for a laugh to see what they're like.

Started with the infamous Smart lights that did indeed weigh as much as a small car and bounced allover the place.

Replaced them with some other more compact, yet still budget 5w/10w halogens, but these packed in so I got them replaced and paid some more to get a Light & Motion Solo Logic 13w overvolted halogen.

The L&M was way better than anything I'd had before and in time this migrated from the bars onto my head where it did a sterling job.

The arrival of a Fenix on my helmet saw the L&M back ont he bars for a really effective combo, but riding in the shadows of my mates Lumicycles eventually became frustrating.

This Autumn I've succumbed to my desires and bought a Hope Vision 4. I love it – it lacks a hot spot, but gives a really effective, bright, even light that I'm really starting to warm to over a defined spot.

I went from the old Smart twin halogens to Lumis to modded DX torches, but have now got more than enough light:

On the bars – 2 x quad Cutter R2 converted Marwi nightpro alloy MR11 lamps one with narrow optic, one with the medium – powered by a 6.6Ah 14.8v Li ion battery.
On the helmet a triple Cutter R2 with narrow optic powered by a 2.2Ah 14.8v Li ion battery.
All driven @ 1000mA or 350mA with individual switches to the rear, driven by bFlex-V2B to give hi/lo settings & low flash for road use.
Very much on the right side of 2000 lumens, even allowing for loses & I've been >41mph offroad in pitch black darkness with them!
Total weight is under 900g & run time over 3 hours (using low for climbing)
I might sell these & make some new lights using the new XPG LEDs when they are available so I can use smaller batteries.

i bought a hope HID vision stem mount nearly 5 years ago,they were new out and therefore kinda unproved,i think the lupines at the time had a better spread but all my mates have since had to replace there batterys or complete lights, this light is nearly 5 years old and still on the original battery and bulb,only the connecting lead was replaced,i later bought the smaller made MK2 HID hope with helmet mount around 2 years ago,so far so good,i dunno if other lights are better but the hopes have been mega reliable,i think the stem light battery must of had over 400 charges now,only thing is the beam is narrow-not as good a spread as others, though good for dazzling car drivers that dont dip there lights 🙂

Jeez Rob how many lights have you been through?

Cateye ABS 20 – Way too many cables / bits.

L&M ARC – excelent as a helmet light and all you'd need, but bulbs kept blowing.

Currently using a Hope 4 on the bars and a 2 on the lid. More than enough but I like the combo of handlebar and helmet light, plus all the bits are interchangeable and I've got a spare light should one pack up.

forgot a hope vision 1 and set of smart lights also 😳

WHat happeed to the Exposure?

sold it to finance the niterider minewt x2 and the new DX light

First decent set were Vistalite 10/10watt halogen – heavy and dim.
Next, Lumicycle 12/20 watt halogen, a bit brighter and lighter.
L&M ARC – brilliant, reliable, huge step forward.
Hope HID, more of the same if not quite so bright.
Hope 4 LED, about the same output, but better reliability and user friendliness.
L&M Stella 120 as a helmet light – cute!
When i stick Stella on my helmet, the velcro strap chaffes my barnet. Does anyone have any good way around this problem, ie a better way to mount it? (Ta!)