Hi
Its a mates 40th coming up and his missus wants to buy him a bike related present.
He hasn’t done much night riding up to now and wants to try it as the nights lighten up and get ready for next year.
I use Lumi’s and am happy with them but he doesn’t want to spend that much at the minute.
We normally just ride normal trails in the dark not particularly technical stuff
So any recomendations???
Cheers
Steve

I have a niterider minewt 2 led which I use for the same kind of riding you mention.I have found it great so far for everything & my mates have commented on its brightness.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Niterider-Minewt-X2-LED-Front-Bike-Light-Li-Ion-NEW_W0QQitemZ360141950230QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_SportsLeisure_Cycling_Bike_Lights?hash=item360141950230&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1683%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

I might get a second one for more adventurous stuff like weekends in Wales etc…but I am sure he would find this one great for the job in hand.

P7 Torch (not the bike) £40-50 or two of them for £80-100.

i’ve got some Q5 2AA torches from dealextream. With a bit of drilling, soldering and fiddling they make 240lumen 58g lights. I usualy run them off a homemade 3V battery pack in the cammelback. Gives about 1 hour of light per AA battery (so upto 8 at the moment).

Got 4 torches as well so can generate about 950lumen and the 250g weight is still fairly small, especialy as you can spread them out so it doesnt feel like youve got a pendulum on your head, 2 on top, one above each ear.

Total cost is knocking arround £70 at the moment.

not so great bar mounted as the beam is a spot that fades away to the edges, great for looking well down the trail, not so great for seeing round corners when bar mounted.

Steve,
I’ve got a Joystick that I’m plenty happy with, think you can pick them up for around £125 nowadays. Certainly brighgt enough for normal trail riding and battry life is good.

I know Jonny Junkyard had some monster trhings made by some guy on here, they were about £100. They were very bright!

TROUT is the man you are referring to and I have the older less bright version 750 lumens iirc!!! £100 for light + battery costs though. You could drive a car with one it is that bright

2nd the Niterider MiNewt. Doesn’t put out loads of light but does enough, and on the lower setting (which is still good enough) you’ll get about 3 hrs burn time.