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Hello chaps,
Looking for some reasonable lights (price and performance) for the road and mountain bike for when the evenings draw in. I remember seeing some discussion recently. Could someone please point me in the direction of the thread or provide some pointers for lights.
For road I'm more interested in light weight, bright and fairly compact solutions.
For MTB I think something real bright, cost effective and reasonable running time could be cool.
Cheers
Chief
For a road bike you don't need as much as off road, you would be fine with a Chinese magicfire and on the bar mounting, which you could also use as an offroad head torch with a bit of helmet Velcro strapping
Personally I find that on a road bike, an self contained unit with no external battery, is a massive bonus. I picked up a 2nd hand Exposure Toro for not much money for that very purpose. Doesn't need stupid amounts of lumens on a road bike either, a narrower beam pattern will make more of the available firepower.
For offroad use, a much broader beam pattern is ideal. I'm much happier strapping a separate battery to my mountain bike frame (for some reason, might be cos it's ally versus carbon). Got a Troutie Lumen liberator which is the mutts nuts, but you can spend a lot less for nearly as good performance.
Alternatively, you could just buy a couple of those Cree XML torches and strap em to your bars Heath Robinson style...
i am using a set of Ayups, for both, if i was buying today i would get a set of B&M luxus things for the road, then either bodge a battery or use a dynamo. For the MTB i would stick with the Ayups.
Have a look at the German type approved ones they have a beam pattern similar to a cars head lights so you don't dazzle anyone
Just bought a set of Exposure Flash and Flare rechargeable lights from Evans for £60. Just been out using them and even as daylight running lights they are pretty damned effective, certainly vehicles gave me plenty of room.
I have:
Exposure Joystick
Exposure Strada
Cateye EL620
For just riding along commuting, the EL620 is fine and a bargain. The Strada provides extra peripheral lighting, which is a nice to have. The Joystick makes a great helmet light, but is also compact and a reasonable headlight, despite a non optimised beam.
For cheap usefulness (£40) get the Cateye.
Wolly,which ones are the German approved ones?
hey Edhornby, where do you get the magicfire lights from? Cant find any on ebay or Amazon. 😕
houndlegs, have a look at philips, busch und muller, axa. tend to be dynamo's rather than battery lights. measured in Lux not Lumens which means they don't sound as powerful, and in absolute terms they are not the most powerful, but they use the light they put out far better.
They're stvzo standard I've had a google but not found much maybe have a look at Rose or Bikediscount