[Closed] Are bike lights a rip-off?

Pieface - Member
but how good does the light quality need to be?

why can't they put universal battery connectors on the lights so you cam swap head units between manufacturers? that would be really useful

As for the terrible inconvenience of repairing a £50 light with a new £2 connector and 1 minute with a soldering iron, oh wow I must go and give Hope 5x the money.

Of course if you are in the middle of nowhere, it's late on a very dark night and you're on a solo ride, I'm sure there'll be no problem doing such a repair!

As for the terrible inconvenience of repairing a £50 light with a new £2 connector and 1 minute with a soldering iron, oh wow I must go and give Hope 5x the money.

Yep, it's dead easy to rewire your lights, especially in the middle of a night ride or a 24 hour race (the favourite time of the buggers to die: fact).

*High fives the cheesy one*

I think saying DX lights are good value whereas trout/exposure arent is silly. They offer different products. One is a budget choice and the other is the super-bells-and-whistles choice.

At the minute I ride with DX lights simply because its all I can afford. If they last a year I'm happy because it costs less than £50 to replace it.

In the future when I have a bit more money i'll probably go for exposure simply because they have the integrated battery pack, waterproofing and good warranty/after sales. If troutie lights had integrated battery packs, for me, they would be more enticing.

I can only say both of you deserve it for rely on a single light TBH (no backup of any sort).

Those that buy DX etc, do so because they are either dipping their toe in the night riding scene, or they simply cant justify the cost.

Hmmmm, my initial response was going to be bollox, but then I spotted the word [i]justify[/i] which I first interpreted as [i]afford[/i], anyway....

I'm neither dipping my toes in night riding (been doing it since 1997) nor unable to afford (justify) the cost but I have chosen to go with a Magicshine light.

Someone mentioned about these lights only lasting 2 years, well going by some of the prices of other lights I could get 6 (or more) years riding before I've paid more by changing every two years, but will have benefitted from any technology changes occuring during that time. In fact changing every year wouldn't be troublesome at these prices.

I think LED development (still early days for this stuff) and the agility of the likes of DX to bring new product to market certainly makes it difficult for me to justify buying expensive lights and that's not based on cost.

but how good does the light quality need to be?

All depends on the application:
-Commuting along lit streets you don't need much output it's more about being safe and visible to cars
-On dark unlit roads you'll want more light and a better spread, whilest at the same time trying not to blind other road users.
-For pelting through the woods in pitch blackness, you want powerful lights yes, but you don't want "hotspots" or focused areas of very high intensity which simply glare off of trees and blind you, nor do you want rapid drop off in lighting forcing your eyes to adjust between a well illuminated centre reigion and a poorly lit peripheral area.
-You may well require a helmet light for Night time MTBing to ensure you always have lighting orientated inline with your head (as you will often find the bars pointing elsewhere), again you want a good non-glaring pool of light, and as low a mass as practicable (you have to carry this thing on your head).

why can't they put universal battery connectors on the lights so you cam swap head units between manufacturers? that would be really useful

Connectors and adaptors are out there for those willing to loko/do a bit of DIY but honestly are you expecting companies to design themselves ou of a sale? Get real!

Correct me if I'm wrong here but doesn't Trout allow you to select your own battery/connector if you want?

z1ppy, amazing insight there, were you hiding in the bushes on my last night ride? Alternatively, are you God?

Correct me if I'm wrong here but doesn't Trout allow you to select your own battery/connector if you want?

You sir are correct if you have a battery / charger thats the right voltage and not ready for the landfill then certainly can adapt for any of my lights

So..... OK £300 sounds like a lot for a light. Personally I didn't spend quite that much, somewhere between £400 and £500 has got more a Four4th Holy Moses on the bars and a Four4th Genesis 3 spot on the helmet.

I ride off road in a big group 2 nights a week every week and regard that money as well spent.

Let us not forget how much we spend on the bikes themselves - who here regularly rides on a bike that is part of a collection of bike that is worth £2k or more? So as a proportion of your bike spend it probably isn't so bad. And you can get the DX ones if you want or are unsure about night riding or need some really cheap lights on your carbon bling machine!

And we continue to need people in sheds, garages and small units like trout, four4th, luminous and co to keep pushing the boundaries and ensure the big names don't get too comfortable.

Also - I like buying local! It is leaner, greener and I can take it back when it falls apart - this goes for any product really.

Personally I HATE the cheap lights with a passion. My local trails, deserted for years and years and offering me peace and solitude at night time are now full of bikers. Rivi at night resembles Blackpool now.

Yours,

Mr. Grumpy.

Personally I HATE the cheap lights with a passion.

Ultimately it all depends on what "Value" you attach to extending the available time you can go riding into the night, personally I wouldn't be without my collection of Bastids/torches and I can see the value in a good reliable light system in the £3-400 range if you're riding 2-3 times a week in the dark and doing a few endurance events, it's just a shame my missus can't or else I would buy a trout tommorow.

Totting it up actually I reckon I've spent ~ £140 in the last 2-3 years on lighting/batteries, almost all with DX, so sadly my money has pretty much all gone East, I could have had a Joystick for that... Hmmmm, as it is I've got 3 cheap lights that all work, but I know there's better (in terms of function and build quality) available.

Out of interest is there a [I]"night riding scene"[/I] or is just another way of saying "Riding bikes in the dark, and Spooking Doggers"?

Mr A, nope was out riding in the rain for the 1st time this year (as in 1st rain we've seen, not been hiding from it) with my cheap far-east made torch which worked fine through-out . You more than welcome to worship me as god, but I don't believe in god, so wouldn't feel neglected if you did't believe in me.

You want to find fault in them, so you will.
I found fault in my 1st and only £500 light, lots of faults actually, so much so the manufacturer decided he din't want to warrentee it any more.
Yes the DX lights can and do fail, no one says otherwise, but normally you get lots of warning. Any light can fail out in the field not just DX one's, again I've seen this and happily lent them a spare DX torch I carry.

As be cookess, I've bought 2 'normal' P7 torches, one MS P7 bike light, and an XML bike light from Smudge, over the last 3-4 years.
All of them still work, though the MS P7 needed a new connector, and battery protection circuit, hardly the end of the world.
Still hasn't cost me what a Hope LED light would have cost & I have spares to lend out, to those Hope users suffering issues...

a good reliable light system in the £3-400 range if you're riding 2-3 times a week in the dark and doing a few endurance events

This is the kind of statement I'm not sure I understand\buy into as the 'cheap' ones can be used 2-3 times a week and at endurance events.

Also:

but I know there's better (in terms of function and build quality) available.

Ok, build quality, the more expensive ones may be better, doesn't mean the 'cheap' ones aren't adequate. And function wise I'm not sure what I need more than hi\lo\flash\off; actually I'd like to drop the flash mode and have the ability to switch between hi\li without cycling through all the modes, bugger better spend more money..

Cookeaa - the above not aimed at you, it's just you wrote alot what others say.

Yep, it's dead easy to rewire your lights, especially in the middle of a night ride or a 24 hour race (the favourite time of the buggers to die: fact).

That happened to a <big name light, £300+> I borrowed for D2D within a minute of my first lap.

My Bastids have been excellent and reliable, even in the wet - had to fix 1 battery pack but it was my own fault, I knew the limits of the waterproofing and ignored it.. As have my Lumi halogens. But my Magicshine HID fell apart after one (quite high speed) off. It was that that convinced me to go LED (with a Night Lightning iBLAAST II) head - reasonably pricey, but gives a better light than the DX. Too good for me really.

I think all it proves is that sometimes lucks with you, sometimes not.

OI!! Mr Grumpy! Fancy coming out on a night ride next week then? With me and my suitably expensive lights?

My local trails, deserted for years and years and offering me peace and solitude at night time are now full of bikers

You weren't complaining last week when the gaggle of female bikers came past!

Again you are not taking into account the big benefits for cyclist who use there bikes a lot. And possibly being a little hypocritical if you are car driver?
ALSO
"How to count gears. Each chain wheel at the front is equal to 2 at the back ie it is twice the distance apart. If you have 1 cog on the front and 9 on the back then you only have 9 gears?
If you put another cog on the front then that gives you an extra 2 gears thats why when you change down at the front (2 gears) you change up at the back 1 gear total gear change 1 gear? Add another gear at the front you have another 2 gears. Therefore 9 + 2 + 2 equals 13 on a so called 27 geared bike. Removing 1 gear at the back obviously cannot be removing 3 gears????"

Wow , that's amazing , really amazing , it's also bollox .

I manage fine off road with one helmet mounted l and m Stella 120

I don't think anyone's saying that "big name" lights don't fail. I gave two examples in my first post. But that was after 3 years of week in, week out use in all weathers, and the manufacturers sorted them. I can solder after a fashion, but it mostly consists of trying not to melt anything too important as I bodge stuff together. Plus my Hopes now have a brand new battery which is a big bonus, and should extend their lifespan by another couple of years, by which time we'll probably all be riding hoverboards anyway...

Anyway, my experiences are more valid than yours because I'm a riding god, yadda yadda... 😉