Personally I would say that for towpaths / roads / urban then Chinese is fine. For riding at warp speed in the pitch black on a gnarly trail I wouldn’t entertain them.

I wouldn’t ride fast in the pitch black on a gnarly trail with only one light. Used the cheapo chinese lights a fair few times and never had any issues though.

I’m not saying I ride full-on with only a helmet torch. I’m saying I could and did get round on one torch if I had to.

I always ride with 3 lights.

Bars, helmet & spare helmet one in the backpack 😉

From what I’ve heard, high isn’t exactly needed, as medium is bright enough for general use.

I’ve just rode with the light on medium the whole time, and it is enough to ride by.

High setting is nicer to use, but swapping between the settings depending on the terrain will definitely last me a full ride.

Do any of you notice the PWM on the Chinese lights.
Like a strobe effect in the corner of your vision. Not everyone is overly sensitive to it.

Rich

With mine the lowest setting on the Solarstorm is nowhere near as bright as the Joystick. In fact the Joystick is almost as bright as the Solarstorm on high where it is brightest, it just doesn’t have the spread of light the Solarstorm provides.

Strange. Mine is way brighter than my joystick when on full.
As I mentioned above – low on the solarstorm is about the same as the joystick (the Joystick may be a tad brighter – hard to tell as it’s more spotty).

I’ve not compared it to my other xml lights & torches… Might do this weekend.

Did you get yours from the seller eBay seller on the first page (springbloomzx)?

I Have an Airbike P7 (Brought from On-One a few years back) which is still going strong and is my default light.
Bright enough to ride singletrack with for sure.

I have a pair of LUU (Nukeproof) P7 Lights too but always just seem to grab the airbike.

I took the dog for a walk the other night with the new solastorm, both Airbike and solastorm batteries fresh off charge.

The Solastorm on low is brighter than the Airbike P7 on High.
Not done run time yet, but on first impressions for the money, I think its great.

Strange. Mine is way brighter than my joystick when on full.
As I mentioned above – low on the solarstorm is about the same as the joystick (the Joystick may be a tad brighter – hard to tell as it’s more spotty).

I’ve not compared it to my other xml lights & torches… Might do this weekend.

Did you get yours from the seller eBay seller on the first page (springbloomzx)?

When using them together the joystick spot still overpowers the solarstorm beam on medium, in the small area it lights up.

Is yours the latest joystick (mk 7), as I know they keep upping the output a little with each revision?

I bought mine from Ebay seller laptopartsupplier for £25.99.

Must get round to doing some beam shots. 🙂

Edit: I am very happy with the light, especially for the money, just trying to give people an idea of what to expect.

Question for the night riders here.

Having just not bothered in the past, I quite fancy some evening riding this winter. I think I’ll get some of these cheap lights to give it a punt. Question is should I be mounting em on my head or the bars?

Or one on each?.

@ Rich
I think my Joystick is a mk7 – was bought ealier this year when Wiggle were selling them cheaply.

With my Solarstorm on full, you can switch on the Joystick and there’s no change – it’s completely over powered.

Will try and have a proper fiddle this weekend (oooh matron).

@Hobnob, I’d buy the cheap £18 one and put it on the bars. Then, if you find you are night riding a lot, buy an X2 for the bars, and put the other on your helmet.

@ Rich
I think my Joystick is a mk7 – was bought ealier this year when Wiggle were selling them cheaply.

Snap!

With my Solarstorm on full, you can switch on the Joystick and there’s no change – it’s completely over powered.

Yeah I’d agree with that on full, but not medium with mine.
I found medium Solarstorm and full Joystick power was a good match.

2 x 15 quid ebay jobbies for me, T6 ones, one with a wide beam reflector put in.

For 35 quid all in for two lights i cant understand why you’d want to spend more.

And i love people taking photos of their light setups in the dark when they have no clue about taking photos.

Having just not bothered in the past, I quite fancy some evening riding this winter. I think I’ll get some of these cheap lights to give it a punt. Question is should I be mounting em on my head or the bars?

Both would be the ideal. Handlebar mounted lights are great until you come to a corner, as you can’t see round the corner to see obstacles coming up. A head mounted light give you the freedom to look anywhere, but you loose depth perception, as there a no shadows to define trail obstacles. So both is best, but many ppl prefer using the a head light if they only have one.
That said you have to bear in mind the size of the lamp, my friend has a inton dual XML (think MS-880) and there no way I’d mount that lump of metal on my head and it give off so much light that seeing round corners isn’t a to much of an issue.

I prefer a small low profile head lamp, currently use a Troutie-mini on my head, but the Solarfire x2 is around the same size, so would happily recommend that too.

PS: Phil are you patronising in real life too? Maybe instead you could offer some suggestions on getting better pictures instead of just sounding like a cock?

My impression of the Chinese units is as follows:

Purchased a cbseen unit and proceeded to ride a red route at a local trail centre in the pitch black.
Without warning the light immediately switches off during a descent. Not good.

It gets returned under warranty and the battery pack now has issues. Never again.

Had the same experience with a USE Exposure. First lap of D2D too.

All it shows is sometimes you get a duffer. At least a CHinese duffer is cheaper!

@ Zippy.

Not being a cock, just stating a fact.

Showing photos at different exposure settings using an iPhone 5 isnt the way to do it and can give false impressions of a light setup.

I think i’ve seen standard exposure settings for taking photos of light set ups somewhere, something like f5.6 @ iso 100 at some sort of shutter speed.

Basically you need to have manual control of aperture, shutter and iso to get a direct and fair comparision between settings, then this differs between cameras.

Better answer?

Lovely & very useful cheers, you should have posted that 1st. Far too many “thats crap” posts on here without anything helpful, is all that annoyed me.
A couple of sites (MTBR/candle power) have a photo std for light beam shots, but TBF to the poster, he was just trying to give some sort of idea, not all of us have camera with the controls required.

http://www.bikelightsuk.com/front_bike_lights/beema_as2000_front_bike_light_2000_lumens_bicycle_light_P600.html

Took my solarstorm, a joystick and a xml-t6 torch out last night. The solarstorm is bloody bright – has a really good long throw and is plenty wide enough. On low it’s a bit dimmer than the joystick – but then there’s a fair jump in brightness to the next (medium) setting.

The xml was pants in comparison.

The battery dropped from 3 to 2 on the gauge after about an hour on medium. Rode for another 30 mins or so and it remained on 2. Medium was plenty bright enough – but i was using the joystick on my helmet too. I imagine without a second light it’d be fine – but I prefer having 2 light sources.

For the money it’s a great light.

Anyone recommend a Chinese light that’s very similier to the gloworm x1, ie light weight head unit with about 1000 lumens min, (don’t want a torch).

shortcut – Member
Are folk still using those P7 torches that everyone was raving about a course of years ago?

I replaced my P7 SSC torch with a C8 XML-U3… which is brighter and runs longer. Paired with a new 501b XM-L2 on my lid it’s a great set-up and the two torches together were less than £25. But I still have my P7 – my son sometimes uses it, and it’s part of my ‘loan pool’ along with a couple of 501b XML-T6s.

James – got a couple of demo X1s left that have only been used once. STW premier member discount would make it £90 (look back at the Tuesday treats from earlier in the year and you’ll find the STW premier code).

Think i’ll stick with my little box goodies… 😉

Anyone got a link to a decent charger that will charge generic magic shine esque batteries?

Going to get one of the solarstorms but fancy getting a decent battery and charger for it.

Ask at MTBBatteries.co.uk they’ll sort you out with something which will last.

Mine arrived this morning, ordered last Friday. UK label too.
Package was opened to check content, luckily nothing was missing or damaged.

Build quality looks good. Test next week.

Seems there’s a few of these on eBay sub-£20, but not in retail packaging. Would I be right in thinking these are best avoided, due to dodgy batteries etc?

Also, anyone got the red? Is it red red, or pink? Descriptions vary.

Ta.

So far so good with my two Trustfire’s mounted on the handle bars and one Solarstorm x2 on my helmet. Did solo night ride for over two hours through the forests over Cannock Chase and they performed brilliant. No problem with the fact the trails over there are proper rough.

I find a great help with keeping the lights where you want them over rough terrain is double sided foam mounting tape. Just cut there little bits off, stick them together to form a little foam tab. Pull the black foam that comes with the light bracket off and replace with the mounting tape stuck down firm. Peel the top off the foam and position on your handle bars, press down when you have the correct angle and apply the silicon band to hold it down. This will stop any movement on even rough tracks then when you’ve finished just peel It off and discard the tape, ready for a fresh piece next ride. 😀

I had a non boxed one of the Solarstorm x2 and the battery is fine. Good light when on my helmet.