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Geex - maybe she wasn’t shredding the gnar as hard......
It isn't heavy but the weight makes the helmet wobble a lot more...I've used it a few times as a helmet-mounted light but always found I couldn't get helmet secure without overtightening the ratchet system.
Likely to work very well for others I suspect I've just got a stupid shaped head or sensitive skull.
I found that with a light that is a little less heavy / bulky than the 1600 (an 18500 type metal head torch) it wobbled a lot on the helmet. Swapped to the Moon I mentioned above and it’s a lot better.
It isn’t heavy but the weight makes the helmet wobble a lot more…
If your helmet really fits so badly it wobbles on your head I'd put money on it not fitting you properly. Forget MIPS, any other expensive gimicks or what trendy brand it is. Buy a helmet that actually fits you properly and learn how to adjust it so it doesn't wobble on your head. This is by far the most important aspect of a helmet you're going to be using with lights mounted to it.
Personally my helmet is fine until I attach a big metal light to the top of it.
Maybe I'll pick up a single light first and try it on the lid! See how I get on
Seems like a plan. I would say the 1600 is very much a flood rather than focused spot. My other 1600 lumen light has more of a focus - although the battery life doesn’t match the bikehut one. The moon is 900 lumens over full power but I usually
run it one setting down from that as it’s more than sufficient. So far the Moon outlasts the bikehut for battery.
There are some beam comparisons a few pages back that I posted up.
Anyone know if its possible to hack to remove some of/all the flashing modes?
https://www.cyclerepublic.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=+Ryder+lights
Anyone tried any of these Ryder's from cycle republic?
Picked one up today, I think they're firmly in the "could work on the lid but something lighter might be nicer"
The Ryder 1600 is a bit more focused than the bikehut but the battery doesn’t seem to last as well. I’ve got both. If you go back a few pages there is a beam pattern comparison of those 2 lights.
Picked one of these up on Sunday, together with the remote switch. I took it out for the first time last night in Mortimer forest, my first proper mtb night ride. The bikehut 1600 was bar mounted to the left of the stem on the supplied rubber mount. I put the remote switch on the end of my left hand grip over the lock ring, it's a bit too loose on the bar itself, unless you wrapped some tape or similar around it. I bodged a helmet light with a 650 lumen Fenix torch I already had, zip tied to the helmet. This worked surprisingly well!
The light was super bright on full beam, a nice wide flood pattern that lit up the trail ahead and well to the side for a good long distance in front. The light is a good solid piece of kit, but the remote switch is incredibly flimsy. The first time I used it, it fell off the bar! The rubber mount is only attached by holes in it which fit over plastic bosses on the switch. To be fair, I had shortened it by moving it to different holes so I may not have reattached it properly, so I will give it another chance. It is fragile and uninspiring though, but t'was only a fiver.
I was only out for about 40 minutes and did switch to lower settings when climbing but it was still showing over 75% charge when I finished. The rubber mount on the light worked well. It held the light tight to the bar and there was little noticeable movement when riding, though I didn't do anything particularly steep or technical.
So all in all, well chuffed with the light at that price, the remote switch not so much.
Plus one.
For me having too many modes to cycle through is quite a big disadvantage. Would love to reduce it just to 2 or 3 brightnesses.
Agreed, thats one of the reasons why I ended up returning mine to Halfords. The other reasons were the ease with which water could get in the light when the remote cabke was fitted. I also got a cracking deal on a USE Exposure Strada 1200 so it main sense to return
Re hacking around all of the extra modes and a remote that cycles "both ways"....
I noticed that the light cycles between modes quickly - at least faster than I can press the button. If it is really quick then it may be possible to either reverse engineer the remote or just to take the microswitches off the board and feed a signal into it, via a simple circuit or something like a Raspberry Pi zero. Button one gives one pulse to switch "down" a mode, button 2 gives 7 pulses to switch "up" a mode (actually cycling through all modes but hopefully quickly enough to not be noticeable).
Has anyone tried this or something similar yet ?
Please can someone do this then sell me one?
I'm sure it would work, but then you'd have to power the Pi, which could be done from the battery but it would whack the life a lot. And even a Zero in a waterproof case would be approaching the size of a battery pack, so negate the point of an all-in-one light.
your poor wives
has anyobe tried the 500 as a head torch yet? i`m tempted i do tend to like my head torch to be more powerful tham bars though (super twisty singletrack here)
I picked up a 500 and a 1600 the other day to replace some cheap non-branded ebay crap I got end of last year.
Rode Penhydd on Tuesday night in the worst conditions I think I've ever encountered on a night ride, probably top-10 for rides of any time too. Rain and fog meant viability was at 3 metres even with my lights and my mates Exposure Six Pack at full tilt.
Anyway, once the fog cleared it was a nice pairing, the 500 was light enough not to give me a stiff neck and the Bikehut helmet mount (sold separately £5) stopped it bouncing about and gave enough light for berms n' that. The 1600 is probably about as bright as the '10000 Lm' 7 lap Chinese one I ditched for it, better spread and better light 'colour' the 10k one is very white, almost blue and makes for very sharp shadows making the trail harder to read than the softer, more yellow bike hut one.
The functions don't bother me, the 1600 has a separate on/off button and the 500 you need to hold down the button to turn it off/on - I only run full power anyway. I think it took about 2 hours to complete because of conditions and even with the lights on full to help see get ready / change etc they were still showing 1hr left on 500 and 2hrs left on 1600, don't know how accurate that was.
The only downside was the out in front mount was pretty crap - it's hard to fit with using Geoff Capes strength hands and however much I tightened the GoPro style knob, it slipped, the plastic feels like the sort of 'self lubricating' stuff you get bushes made from, I'll try the rubber strap next.
I’d buy an alloy mount to use like the one I posted on the last page. Much better and still cheap.
Well I decided to refresh my light collection, after realising that faffing around with wires and chargers with my old fashioned set was making me use my bar-mounted light even though it's not ideal.
Bought a 1600 for the bars and a 500 for my head.
The beam is actually quite spotty compared to others I've had, so throw looks like it should be good. Light quality looks good too - but not tried them on the trail yet.
But the mounting system looks like a great idea. With the OIF mount fitted the light is so far forward there's no light leakage into my eyes or onto the cables and then into my eyes. I bought two mounts for different bikes, then the helmet mount, so I can do away with rubber straps altogether.
And the helmet mount is the crowning glory. It's way better than previous velcro things (it has straps and clip buckles) and it sits far back enough to balance the weight without compromising light output. The 500 is now the most comfortable lid light I've tried - even better than separate battery ones, despite being an all-in-one.
The OIF mount might be a bit wobbly though.
I've had to move from the rubber strap mount to an old GoPro bar mount I had. Even with the stabiliser thing fitted, I found I was descending with one hand on the bar and one on the light to stop it falling forward. Not ideal!
I think the weight of it will overcome the ability of the supplied out front bracket, that's a lot of leverage for a narrow plastic friction face to contend with.
Was out again last night with my 1600. I've ditched the GoPro mount for being wobbly crap and used the rubber strap.
Best MO I found was to strap it tight at the grip end of the bar than side to the middle, I've got 35mm bars so it was very tight, didn't move and didn't snap which was a fear.
mid term update - 1600 still going strong, have just left it on the bike all summer for dusk rides and daylight running. For mounting I use a 'Moon' XL out-front mount which has the gopro bracket underneath and it's absolutely solid. recommended
1st ride with mine last night as a helmet light to replace (hopefully temporarily) broken troutie. As you'd expect it's not as good as that but seemed pretty decent output. Weight was manageable too.
Main issue is that the helmet mount is far from low profile, so wondering if there is a better solution. Something akin to the exposure mounts, that fasten against the inside of the helmet but top out with a go pro style connector.....
I found a better aluminium GoPro mount for my bikehut light recently. Instead of being ‘out front’ which looked slightly dubious it literally loops the bar and the light mounts straight on top. Really happy with it now - the light is bright enough and lasts a decent amount of time. Paired with the Moon Vortex Pro on the helmet I’ve got enough light for steep technical off road riding.
I bought a spare plastic mount - one came in the box with the 500. But I might return that one and get a Moon instead if it's going to be wobbly. Plastic one might be ok with the 500 on road.
EDIT guessing for the 1600 I'd need the XL Moon as, despite more length meaning more flex, the bigger light wasn't far off the bars with the stock one. Am I right?
my charge port fell out. had 2 weeks left on the warranty and halfords replaced the light without quibble.
still seems like very little space and a very fiddly fit.
good light though.
I have one of these I’m not using if anyone fancies a lightly used one?
Russyh - how much are you looking for?
Can anyone link me to any of the alternative mounts they're recommending- as noted already when offroad the supplied one wobbles around all over the place!
Cheers
I use one of these - it’s much more solid than the mount that comes with the light and weighs almost nothing plus is cheap so quite happy with it
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F122851708371
I’d be interested to see the mount that @joebristol has found as I could do with one for another bike and like the idea of mounting on top of rather than in front of the bars
I’d be interested to see the mount that @joebristol has found as I could do with one for another bike and like the idea of mounting on top of rather than in front of the bars
This is the one I bought:
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F273988348865
I’d say it’s a little more secure than the out front one and it looks a bit nicer.
excellent - thanks for the links both of you
For those of you who have a free plastic mount that came with the 500, or who bought another (like me), you may be interested in the following mod. I noticed that the flex in the mount comes from twisting of the main stem, not up and down flexing. I had a look at the underneath:
[img] 
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When it twists, all these little rectangles become parallelograms. So I filled them with epoxy putty that sets rock hard, to prevent the rectangles from deforming:
[img] 
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It's worked a treat. Absolutely rock solid now in normal riding; only a tiny bit of vibration on properly rocky fast descents which I can live with. I'm sure you could do a neater job than I did, it would be easy to get a proper finish - not that you can see it ever.
I will probably still get a Moon one for my rigid bike because I need a third, but I'll happily use these now at under half the price on road and FS.
@molgrips good bodge - did you use Miliput?
EDIT guessing for the 1600 I’d need the XL Moon as, despite more length meaning more flex, the bigger light wasn’t far off the bars with the stock one. Am I right?
I bought XL although the mount puts the light under the bar and the GPS level with it so overhang is less of an issue. It's really rigid so I wouldn't worry about flex.
It's Unibond Repair Xpress just normal B&Q stuff.
Anybody else noticed the remote draining the battery if left plugged in over the course of a week? Mine's held it's charge fine for best part of a month without it.
Tempted by these lights. 1600 on the bars, anyone using the smaller ones on the helmet, either 500 or 1000?
Down to £40
Thats brilliant Halfords are still selling these, I imagined they were an end of line job due to charging port niggles.
Mine has been great but the battery bank output has stopped working and I can't see how to open up the unit without using force. I think I used a 1 into 2 way USB lead to charge my Wahoo and phone at the same time whilst bivvying and overloaded it as later that day it wouldn't charge anything.
I was expecting a straight refund but I should get a replacement if its still available 🙂
if you get one, get a hope QR bracket to replace the rubber strap bar mount.
it's solid after that upgrade.
Well finally chucked £40 quid the way of Halfrauds today,and like most im reasonably impressed the max setting is a fair old amount of USABLE light. I say that as its the amount of light emitted out as apposed to the throw of the beam, In conjunction with my China 100,000 lumen mini sun (£13 special )its brilliant. The rubber strap seemed to hold up well on my 35mm Renthal bars to, well worth the money and i mean what else can you get for £40 these day £40
Does anyone know what GoPro connector Halfords have used? I bought one yesterday and was expecting it to include one based on the on the photos (just the attachment that screws into the light, not the mount for the bike) but my box only contains the rubber strap.
I also might have a dud straight out the box. Haven't had time to investigate, but I didn't manage to turn it on this morning all charging it fully overnight.
I just went to buy one of these now that they're 40 quid. Just got a rubber strap in the box, I was expecting the Garmin mount as in the pictures on the website.