Expensive lights

I’ve not bought any cheap lights. I tested the Magicshine and thought it was great for the cash, but didn’t like the big battery pack. In terms of ‘performance’, I can’t say my Lumi XPG was ‘better’. They were both bloomin good.

But my XPG is two years old and has been used probably 100+ times. The head unit had a slightly loose coupling that I reported to Lumi. Sent back thursday, fixed for free, dispatched friday, arrived today. They even cleaned it 😉

I’m very happy to support a UK company with brilliant customer service and great products. That in no way means the cheaper stuff is ‘bad and if more people are night riding, it’s all good.

I borrowed one of the cheaper lights from a friend last year, not sure what it was exactly. Hard to argue against it for the money but I didn’t like the beam pattern, very bright but too small spot with a wide but too dim halo effect. I found the very bright spot distracting. Also it was a bit heavy for a helmet mounted lighted and I didn’t like having a battery in my rucksack. Now my AyUps may not be the brightest but they are more than bright enough. They are also very well made, I did manage to squash mine in a collision with a tree but they were still working and despite it being my fault they replaced them for the cost of postage. I like the small size, the flexibility of two light sources, having a spare battery, car charging option, brackets for two bikes, avaliability and robustness. I also got them upgraded last year and bought some spare parts for less than £100 all in. Given the cost of a lot of other bike parts I feel like they have been good value.

I bought a £30 DX a couple of years ago, this will be its 3rd winter and its been faultless why would I want to pay x amount of times more for something that is a little bit better.

What price freedom? Like Mr Smith I paid about £250 for a set of Ay Ups about 2 years ago. Assuming i night ride 1.5 times p/w, that equals paying £1.60 for the freedom to ride in the dark each time (my only choice 6-9 months of the year) – the freedom to ride AT ALL in the week. And of course that cost keeps reducing the longer the lights last.

If they didn’t last years and years that would be a different matter.

Falkirk Mark, obviously you dont want to, so you wont. Some of us do, and we have!! Each to their own, really.

Its the same with all MTB kit. You can get an entry level bike for 300 quid, but some of us choose to spend more. Is my Carbon FS 10x better than an entry level HT? probably not, but I could afford it, and love it.

Some choose to spend more, that’s fine, but you can’t argue the same benefit in terms of performance or quality between a cheap set of lights and a set at 10x the price, as you can between a cheap bike and one 10x the price. The law of diminishing returns applies in both cases, but the slope is alot steeper in the case of the lights. The irony of this debate is people are arguing against ‘cheap Chinese products’. What isn’t a cheap Chinese product these day’s? The end price is just a matter of what brand is on the packaging to justify the premium. We’re all suckers at the end of the day.

dantsw13 I see your point regarding expensive bikes, it has to climb/descend well brake steer and change gear it also has to be light/reliable and comfortable you could also add a load more wants/ needs to the list but a light needs to throw a beam that you can see across the trail reliably (nothing else) why should you have to pay premium cash when I am not asking much from it.

FM, Ive had cheap lights, and they were great, to a point. Ive just gone from a Magicshine P7 helmet light to a Trout Spider eyes, and there is a world of difference – Brightness, beam shape, battery life, helmet mount, as well as great customer service.

When my new light arrived, the battery lead was about 10cm shorter than I would ideally have wanted. I emailed Trout, to ask if I could purchase an extension cable from him. Instead, he said he would build me a new battery with the length of cable I wanted, and when it arrives, pop the old one back in the post to him. Try that with DX! my last light from China lasted about 40 yds, when the battery pack strap broke, my battery fell into my back wheel and exploded!!

Depends on how you plan to use them. If you ride alone at night and/or put a lot of time and money into going on trips that involve riding at night, you don’t want a light that will let you down.

Your mileage may vary, but I’d much rather take a USE light on a 200 mile ride in the highlands than my cheapo one. In fact, the cheapo one is so damn heavy, I can’t use it as a helmet light for more than a couple of hours.

200 lumens ? I couldn’t find the kettle on a dark morning with that.

speed sensitive output – where a light dims on your slow entry,steepest, rear wheel skidding descent of the year!

jimjam – Member

Compared to an exposure product for example they are inferior in every way except price

Also be tongue in cheek? Comparing my Magicshine to a Maxx-D… The Magicshine is lighter, just as well put together, has a comparable charger, produces pretty much exactly the same power (though I prefer the beam pattern), can change batteries (for long rides or when they get tired after a few years) and can be head mounted. I like Exposure’s OMS though, very clever, but I honestly wouldn’t choose a Maxx D even if it cost exactly the same as my Magicshine.

I suspect you’ve just not used any of the nicer magicshines so are judging them all based on the cheapest ones?

200 hundred lumens eh? Sure you can ride xc with that but it depends what you want to do dunnit, I had a joystick and used it for a few laps at HTN1 and a few months of local night riding, I managed ok with it, bit slow down tech stuff tho, then I got a hope 4 and I can ride fast now, not too far from daytime speed. Sometimes do night time xc commutes with just the joystick, it’s fun, reminds me what night riding used to be like in the old days 2/6/10w halogens and the like, serious tunnel vision. 200 is still fine for getting places, heck last week i was riding by moonlight for a while which was fine til speed got to double figures, but nowadays I night ride cause I need to, i’m short of time but still want to get as many fast downhills, technical bits and smiles I can in the little time I have and for that big lights are good. Each to their own tho, you may well be able to ride faster than me with just your 200 but I bet you could ride even faster with more lumens – if you wanted to.

Martin yeah I wondered about that too!

But back to op, I’ve used cheap light in the past and some DIY ones and had my fingers burnt, faffage, lose connections and crap batteries or just dying out on the trail not good, cheapo stuff seems to have improved now tho, tempted to try again, might get some for commuting where I can always switch to road if theres a problem, not so easy when night riding in middle of nowhere.

I did a few runs down foel gasnach tonight with my new hope r4. The amount of light you have obviously dictates how fast you tackle messy terrain.

horses for courses innit?

I did a few runs down foel gasnach tonight with my new hope r4. The amount of light you have obviously dictates how fast you tackle messy terrain.

horses for courses innit?

As with anything the amount of light is generally irrelevant. The beam patterns, mounting, positioning and aiming are all just if not more important. I would also hazard a guess that very few lights meet the lumen count quoted. Some nice independent testing would be good.

I’d rather have a less powerful, better aimed reliable light than some of the others.

There are two schools of thought regarding lights as I see it:

1. Buy Cheap. These folks say that technology is changing so rapidly, that next year’s lights will be brighter, longer running, lighter, cheaper or some combination thereof. So any light that you buy will be rapidly obsolete. So they buy the cheap lights with the idea that they are disposable, or nearly so. They accept some risk as far as quality, and probably won’t get as many charges out of the battery packs and such. But they are willing to take these risks since they don’t have to invest nearly as much cash in the first place. These cheap lights are almost always more than enough for the occasional recreational trail rider, and no doubt are responsible for introducing a lot of people to night riding.

2. Buy Good. These folks feel that the advantages that more expensive systems offer outweigh their higher prices. Stuff like a better beam pattern, lighter weight for the same brightness, better engineering and therefore more durability and longevity, and a longer warranty period. Often, reliability is important; maybe because they use the lights often in training, commuting, or racing where a light failure is a real PITA. And by buying a good light, they expect to have to buy them less often, making the overall cost closer than the initial purchase price may indicate.

Personally, I see both points of view. But I spent the $$$ and got the Ay Up V4 about a year ago and am quite happy with them.

Its all to do with the time it takes to get a product to market though. For Hope, Lupine, Ay-Up it could easily be 18months to 2 years from design to delivery by which time the technology is out of date, so all they can offer is the best available at the time of conception coupled with the best possible case.

The problem is that after 2 years since it was conceived and such, taiwanese have bbrought out new LEDs that allow a much more powerful system etc etc and the likes of DX can bring them straight to market the day they are made as they sell from a website and there are no dealers with seasonal requirements so to speak.

They also dont need to make the packaging for the light as costly as Hope as well its pointless as they know that in 12 months the previous light will no doubt have been seperseeded twice over in any case.

Hence why Trout can do good things as he takes the best of both worlds, a good case and a good new led/driver etc.

Also think about it, loads are saying something is great (Hope) as its in a posh box/case, its the light that you are buying though, the bright thing that lets you see and crucially that is not as good as it could be – Like buying Grants Whisky cos its in a posh box instead of some 25yr old malt from a micro brewery who dont really bother with posh boxes or expensively designed labels.

Maybe the big guys need to change their sales model if they are to compete???

I own a Hope Vision 2 and cateye triple shot which are both well made lights but not a patch on the stuff available from DX for cheap now

Lumicycle. Had Halogen lights from them originally and they worked well. I bought the biggest battery they had at the time – for really long run times with a spot and a flood pair of units. Now I run the LED. Over 6 years or more, I’ve only had two issues: blew a fuse – battery returned and repaired FoC and I noticed a crack in the reflector of a halogen. Saw them at a Gorrick 12-24 and they replaced the reflector there and then, FoC. No problems at all with the LED and the battery is still good for a few weeks of sporadic long commutes between charges. The batteries are not too bad price-wise but the LEDs are now a lot more than I paid for mine. The Halogen units are only £35 each, which is pretty good I think. These lights are put together in Bournemouth and the after sales is personal. I wouldn’t go anywhere else.

bland – do you drive a 1000bhp car with 12 litre v12 ?

no thought not – bigger numbers(despite what large numbers of this forum think) infront of things dont make them automatically better.

FWIW i actually won less races when i moved from 200lumens to 1200 lumens 😉

The inconvenient truth here is that the cheap Chinese lights are not cheap quality, well the ones I bought aren’t. There seems to be a lot of anecdotes from purchasers of expensive lights telling us how good the warranty is, the point being the lights failed in the first place. The experience of my mates over about ten cheap Chinese units is 100% reliability so far after three winter seasons. At £17 each they’ve certainly earned their keep. They Come in fancy packaging, are of decent CNC machined anodized aluminium construction with good quality and robust cables. Ok, they don’t have a warranty and are delivered on the slowest Junk from China, but at their price who couldn’t afford to take the risk? We all get ripped off enough on all the other bike kit we buy, at least this is a case where you can save some cash on a good product.

I do ~10 night time MTB rides a year, so cheap lights for me. If I was racing or commuting or just doing lots more I’d go for a MAx D they are ace.

What we don’t hear about is the cheap ones that do fail or very rarely whether this is cos the users can’t be arsed
I don’t know .

But a few of my customers this year have come over from the cheap side due to failures
One had four fail @ £25 each so lost £100

The feedback does seem to be good as reading this thread you would be sure they are bullet proof .

What no one has commented on is no one knows the quality of the cells in the cheapies batteries though I guess Smudge. Knows

Yes my stuff is in the expensive side of lights but I can tell you it’s certainly not going to make me rich
And sales are pretty down on last years by this time

Also there is nothing changing in the led front that would keep me at the cutting edge they seem to have just about peaked with tiny improvements being announced but nothing amazing.

Fortunately ther are still some folks with a bit of cash to spend and want something completely different to the run of the mill stuff Hence the Spider which is doing pretty good on the sales

I dread to think what I’ve spent on lights over the years:

– Lumicycle Halogens (£200 ish?)
– Lumicycle Halide when it first came out (£300)
– Lupine Edison Halide (£550)
– Lupine Wilma 5 (£500)
– LiteOption Ray3A (£250)

And the new cheaper models:

– Deal Extreme Magicshine thing (£30)
– Electron Terra 3 (£120)

All have been flawless, except the cheaper ones. DE battery failed on 2nd charge and was replaced by spare Lupine unit. The Terra 3 is piss poor – claimed run time on high power 3 hours – best achieved so far: 45 mins!!

EDIT: forgot also had Hope District 3 rear light – failed due to design flaw in battery pack cable sealing – had to strip and fix it.

My last lights were Lumilite which I believe we’re just repackaged DX. To be honest the light was good enough for what I needed and cost me only £75. However the battery pack wasn’t very secure and the connector to the light was feeble. More than once I have been half way down a rough bit of track and found myself in sudden darkness. Prior to that i had some heavy German units and the lens fogged up. Those experiences mean I’ll probably buy expensive next time.

My DX speshul is into its third year now, even if it packed in I’d replace it with the same.

That’s the problem. If it packs up, it’s straight in the bin. Not very much the attitude you’ll expect from a MTBer. Whereas I am pretty sure if your USE, or Hope or lumi packs up, they’ll be abble to fix/upgrade fro a small fee.

Well for me not straight in the bin, I’d have a look myself or ask one of the sparkys at work to have a gander.

IMHO I think lights are getting too bright, it would take the fun out of night riding for me by having a genuine 2000 lumens. The DX “900” could be a little brighter but does me for night rides and even the Strathpuffer.

bigger numbers(despite what large numbers of this forum think) infront of things dont make them automatically better.

well I kind of assumed everyone would figure I meant all other things being equal more power will let you go faster. Obviously yes a good 200 lumen light will outperform a bad 1000* lumen job. “It’s what you do with it” and all that 😉

*and yeah the quoted numbers are about as accurate as tyre size and bike weights.

Can we agree on one thing? The cheap £30 DX/eBay lights are a fantastic way to get into night riding. OK, occasionally they might break, but that’s far better than spending a few hundred quid on a light and not using it. FWIW my Cree XML T6 headlight is on its second winter, no issues and I use it regularly for commuting.

My main complaint is that it’s a bit spotty. I’ll probably upgrade to one of the ~£80 Magicshine options at some stage for a better flood.

I guess they’re still in business because some people want the reassurance that comes with knowing that there’s likely to have been a lot more testing of the more expensive products.

As has been mentioned above, if you’re ‘trying out’ nightriding or only plan to do it occasionally, spending megabucks probably isn’t worth it (but feel free to do so!). If it’s something you’ll be doing several times a week, often alone, in the middle of nowhere, maybe the extra expense – rather than buying you more ‘firepower’ – will give you the ability to focus on the ride more.

Within reason, anyone can knock an LED light together, and sell it. Some are of higher quality than others, some are made in much higher quantities thus benefitting from economies of scale against others, and some are expensive and some are cheap.

I’d say if anything though, it’s all about the R&D that has gone into making the light effective at its intended purpose, and not just the number of Lumens on the box. That’s why I’ve consistently been impressed with my Trout Lumen liberator, the four 4ths lights I’ve seen and all Exposure’s I’ve used. Every cheap Chinese made light has had a poor beam pattern even if it was very bright, so for offroad I’d deem them less than ideal. Perhaps better for road riding at night though where a spotty beam is more desirable.

I’d also guess that that the cheap Chinese lights if anything have proved a bonus for the market. 6 years ago, before they existed, and anyone who wanted to ride offroad was looking at spending £200+ at least, most people didn’t bother with night riding. These days, most people have a light even if its a cheapie Chinese one, so that means more of us are getting out at night. I also know a number of people that have bought cheap lights to start, then ended up upgrading to a Trout/Exposure/Four 4ths etc afterwards… Worth considering that side of the argument!

Superficial/mboy – completely agree that the cheap lights are a great way of getting people into night riding. None of the youngsters in my group would be riding if lights were £500 a pop!

I don’t really count Magicshine in the cheapy camp anymore – I think they have really come on in the last few years, especially with the upgraded batteries.

Having had it happen to me, I won’t ride with one cheapie by itself, in case of failure. I do however, run a Magicshine on my bars to compliment my Trout Spidereyes on my lid.

Just gone the maxx-d route and delighted. Why the pricey option? For me its…

1 – I can realistically afford it
2 – practically my only riding for 7 months of the year needs a light and because my riding’s so precious and limited a light related letdown is a major issue for me
3 – I like buying british when the quality and value stack up – i never bought a rover
4 – i’m a bit lazy to search for the right alternative
5 – i like the design
6 – i can see, feel and buy it in a shop so know what I am ge

Cheap far east lights are brilliant too. Great way for a taster or to use on a tighter budget or if ypu don’t rely on night riding for your only weekly ride 7 months of the year.