Thinking of a Joystick Mk5 for various night time duties are they any cope?

yes

As a helmet light and/or commuting light yes.
As your main light source for off road riding no.

as above – main source no

but if your just suplimenting another light with a good spot beam they are ace

i have one with a 3 cell back up and i just turn it on full and it lets me ride for the full dark spell of the strathpuffer with no issues

It won't be my main source i have a Lumi LED3 to take care of that. Just thinking of it for supplimentary stuff. The idea of no wires is appealing to me for mounting it on my head.

Gordymac

I was going to say No until I borrowed one this week when my vision 4 decided to turn off on every bump. This was had a buddy unit making it 480 lumens I think but we weren't sure how long it'd last so I ran only the standard light.

Tight beam, good white light, brilliant for seeing round corners, and riding some singletrack with just this took me back to when we started night riding, and the lumens arms arms race had yet to start 😉 Really enjoyed it.

But +1 for commuting and as a second light. I bought one the next day and will be selling my vision 1 as I won't be needing it.

I believe a new one is coming out with 50 lumens more, so you might get – as I did – a great deal on a 2010.

Save your money, get one of THESE instead.

I've used them both and though the Exposure is better it's not worth 8x the price IMHO.

Spend the £130 you save on cakes.

namastebuzz – Member

Save your money, get one of THESE instead.

I've used them both and though the Exposure is better it's not worth 8x the price IMHO.

Spend the £130 you save on cakes.

I disagree, if you are just trundling along fireroads then I am sure that would be fine, but if you are doing technical riding then light quality is important in picking out ruts/roots/rocks etc. All the cheaper lights I have seen have blackspots and/or halos in the beam that cause havoc, and actually **** up your vision after a while. It may be hard to see the value when you hold compare them in your hand, but on the trail its a different story.

I disagree, if you are just trundling along fireroads then I am sure that would be fine, but if you are doing technical riding then light quality is important in picking out ruts/roots/rocks etc. All the cheaper lights I have seen have blackspots and/or halos in the beam that cause havoc, and actually **** up your vision after a while. It may be hard to see the value when you hold compare them in your hand, but on the trail its a different story.

Goods points dude, I'm not disagreeing per se

It's just that I've used both mounted on Helmets supplementary to main bike-mounted lights (Exposure as it happens) for technical/downhill stuff and the StrathPuffer and IMHO the joystick (although a bit better) is not worth the massive premium. I find the DealXtreme jobby sufficient for my use.

Don't forget – £130 buys a lot of cakes. 🙂

It's maybe the first Joystick that isn't rubbish. Mounts are good as ever, power is finally worth bothering to switch on. And compared with an XPG torch the burn time is phenomenal. (Actually something doesn't make sense there, considering they use the same LED and probably the same battery tech, I don't really understand how they can outlast the torches by 300%, it seems like the DX torches might be underreporting)

Still too expensive mind but good step forward. I think you have to be skeptical when people start talking about "light quality", especially when talking about lights they've never seen 😉 I use a pair of P7s and the light quality is the equal of my mate's Hope 4, and massively superior to the older Joystick my mate uses. No issues, no black spots, no nothing, just a load of light. The joystick does a different job though so I wouldn't compare directly with a P7, still, I'd still recommend a Magicshine.

I've used Joystick as a main light in a 24 hour race. It's plenty bright enough by itself on full beam (though admittedly I'm not exactly a front runner). However I think night riding should be about riding at night, not having enough light such that you might as well be riding in the day.

I've also got a p7 which is seriously bright, but gradually fades as the battery depletes. Might want to think about having a mini torch to make changing batteries half way through a ride easier (not that tricky though tbh, but a pain if you drop the end cap).

They're great together, but IMO the Joystick is far more superior.

Thanks guys, all sounds interesting.

Gordymac

I love them, they are really tiny, well designed, well engineered and reliable…One of those bits of kit that is just "nice to have" and will always come in handy.

As for brightness, I would see if you can try / borrow one before buying. I've used one as my main light for night riding off road for the last couple of years and find it fine (though if your riding buddies all have brighter lights – the "arms race" mentioned above – you can end up riding into your own shadow sometimes). For night racing though, I'd definitely supplement it with something brighter.

As has already been said, it depends a bit if you want the sensation of riding at night or if you need to have the whole trail lit up by car headlight levels of brightness.

+1 for namastebuzz comments, a friend has the joystick and although small and compact is definatly not worth the money when compared to the deal extreme torch, the same friend has an exposure Max D and the deal extreme torch is near enough as bright as the Max D. The thing some peope dislike about the DE torch is the weight but personally this doesn't bother me.

I have just stuck a Maxx 2 up on the classifieds if you are still keen…..