Any good bike lights reviews

[Mark]

Can anyone point me towards some good bike lights reviews? The one's
I have bought all have serious drawbacks.

--
Little Britain leaves. Great Britain stays.

[Roger Merriman]

Mark <i...@dontgetlotsofspamanymore.net> wrote:
> Can anyone point me towards some good bike lights reviews? The one's
> I have bought all have serious drawbacks.
>

That really depends on what your use is!

I have a Exposure Strada that is my commute light it has a low flat beam
shape, and a remote with High/Medium/Low so I can drop it to low if I do
see others in the parks but equally I can boost it for the truly dark bits,
and because it’s mostly on low it lasts days even in mid winter.

Equally I have some MTB lights that provide light where the Strada struggle
ie twisty turns single track where you need a big flood so your not riding
into a unlit rock etc.

I like both but they are very different.

Roger Merriman.

[Roger Hayter]

The value of decent reviews is that they tell you precisely this sort of
thing, and also minor details that might make all the difference to a
particular application. Decent reviews are quite rare, presumably
because they are quite difficult to monetise.


--

Roger Hayter

[Mark]

On Mon, 28 Oct 2019 14:22:42 -0000 (UTC), Roger Merriman
<ro...@sarlet.com> wrote:

>Mark <i...@dontgetlotsofspamanymore.net> wrote:
>> Can anyone point me towards some good bike lights reviews? The one's
>> I have bought all have serious drawbacks.
>>
>
>That really depends on what your use is!

Mostly communting to work (2-3 miles each way) on roads lit and unlit.

>I have a Exposure Strada that is my commute light it has a low flat beam
>shape, and a remote with High/Medium/Low so I can drop it to low if I do
>see others in the parks but equally I can boost it for the truly dark bits,
>and because it’s mostly on low it lasts days even in mid winter.

Sounds good. I'll check these out.

>Equally I have some MTB lights that provide light where the Strada struggle
>ie twisty turns single track where you need a big flood so your not riding
>into a unlit rock etc.
>
>I like both but they are very different.
>
>Roger Merriman.

[Graham C]

On Fri, 25 Oct 2019 16:11:59 +0100, Mark
<i...@dontgetlotsofspamanymore.net> wrote:

>Can anyone point me towards some good bike lights reviews? The one's
>I have bought all have serious drawbacks.

Agree. Also read any four reviews and they all recommend different
lights.

I've been trying to find a rear light which pulses for a while with
little success. It must not flash - always being on but with a
distinct regular pulse to draw attention.

A while ago I read a number of articles on what constitutes 'legal'
lighting requirements (including must have pedal reflectors etc).

At least two of these articles stressed the necessity for flashing
lights to be attached to the bike - not the rider. This requirement
seems to have disappeared from examining recent stuff, with the now
stated advantage of having flashing lights on your helmet. Can anyone
confirm?

GrahamC

[Kim Wall]

On 02/11/2019 12:21, Graham C wrote:
> I've been trying to find a rear light which pulses for a while with
> little success. It must not flash - always being on but with a
> distinct regular pulse to draw attention.

I agree that this is a good pattern for a light that isn't static. I've
seen various fronts doing it, but can't think of any rears.

I achieve a broadly similar best-of-both-worlds effect by using a StVZO
dynamo light (static) in combination with a basic Smart-style flashing
light. It's slightly more faff, but at least there's redundancy, which
I reckon is good to have on the rear, where you don't necessarily know
that your lights are still working.

> A while ago I read a number of articles on what constitutes 'legal'
> lighting requirements (including must have pedal reflectors etc).
>
> At least two of these articles stressed the necessity for flashing
> lights to be attached to the bike - not the rider. This requirement
> seems to have disappeared from examining recent stuff, with the now
> stated advantage of having flashing lights on your helmet. Can anyone
> confirm?

I'm reasonably sure that
<https://www.cyclinguk.org/lighting-regulations> is a decent
interpretation. AIUI once you have a set of legal lights on the bike
(which have to be attached to the bike[1], not your person), anything
goes as long as it's the right colour[2].

Lights attached to the front of helmets are good for seeing where you're
going (especially off-road), for which flashing is stupid. One gotcha
is that I see a lot of cyclists with directional rear lights attached to
helmets aligned so they're horizontal when the cyclist's head is level,
which means they're mostly shining at the sky when riding a typical road
bike.


Kim.
--

[1] Attaching them to luggage is a grey area. But attaching lights to
soft luggage is silly unless they're truly omnidirectional like the
Fiber Flare.
[2] Though I also note that nobody seems bothered when clothing or
luggage has white reflective material to the rear.

[Sam Wilson]

On 2019-11-02 12:21:33 +0000, Graham C said:

> On Fri, 25 Oct 2019 16:11:59 +0100, Mark
> <i...@dontgetlotsofspamanymore.net> wrote:
>
>> Can anyone point me towards some good bike lights reviews? The one's
>> I have bought all have serious drawbacks.
>
> Agree. Also read any four reviews and they all recommend different
> lights.
>
> I've been trying to find a rear light which pulses for a while with
> little success. It must not flash - always being on but with a
> distinct regular pulse to draw attention.

I have a Cateye 5-LED bar-shaped thing, several years old now, which
has such a pattern. It seems to be a TL-LD610[1], now in the Archived
Products section of the Cateye web site. It doesn't have a
steady+strobe pattern which is what I'd really like. I don't know if
any current Cateye products have the same pattern.

> A while ago I read a number of articles on what constitutes 'legal'
> lighting requirements (including must have pedal reflectors etc).
>
> At least two of these articles stressed the necessity for flashing
> lights to be attached to the bike - not the rider. This requirement
> seems to have disappeared from examining recent stuff, with the now
> stated advantage of having flashing lights on your helmet. Can anyone
> confirm?

It used to be that flashing lights used to have to be attached to the
user, not the bike, back in the days when the only lights it was legal
to attach to a bike were ones with incandescent bulbs. I didn't know
the situation had been reversed.

Sam

[1] <https://www.cateye.com/intl/products/safety_lights/TL-LD610/>

--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

[Roger Merriman]

Most of the Exposure rear lights pulse rather than flash, as do some of the
moon lights, I have both though the Exposure rear is quite old now!

Roger Merriman

[Nick Maclaren]

In article <qprods$j4m$1...@dont-email.me>,

Sam Wilson <Sam.W...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>On 2019-11-02 12:21:33 +0000, Graham C said:
>
>> A while ago I read a number of articles on what constitutes 'legal'
>> lighting requirements (including must have pedal reflectors etc).
>>
>> At least two of these articles stressed the necessity for flashing
>> lights to be attached to the bike - not the rider. This requirement
>> seems to have disappeared from examining recent stuff, with the now
>> stated advantage of having flashing lights on your helmet. Can anyone
>> confirm?
>
>It used to be that flashing lights used to have to be attached to the
>user, not the bike, back in the days when the only lights it was legal
>to attach to a bike were ones with incandescent bulbs. I didn't know
>the situation had been reversed.

I am certain it hasn't been - God alone knows where those articles
got their delusion from. I side with the recommendation to have more
than one light - I run my main lights on steady, and secondary ones on
flashing. The latter are cheap ones, angled out, and are intended to
reduce the risk of accidents at junctions (which is actually the main
danger).

There were (and are) good reasons to prefer incandescent - LEDs are
horribly directional, which is fine for headlights and NBG for all other
lights. My trick helps, but it's a bit of a nuisance, and still covers
only a restricted angle. I don't understand why all multiple LED lights
have them all pointing in the same direction, except for a couple which
have some at right angles (which isn't what you need).


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

[Kim Wall]

On 05/11/2019 17:30, Nick Maclaren wrote:
> I don't understand why all multiple LED lights
> have them all pointing in the same direction, except for a couple which
> have some at right angles (which isn't what you need).

Ease of manufacture. It's trivial to solder LEDs to a circuit board and
then stick some plastic in front of them. Newer chip-on-board
construction allows for some nice 'be seen' lights with a 2-dimensional
areas of diffuse light rather than a row of point sources, though most
seem fairly one-dimensional.

I mentioned the Fiber Flare upthread - that's one of the few that's made
a real effort toward true omnidirectionality. It's a good choice if
you're mounting a light on your clothing or saddlebag, where a
directional light will inevitably point the wrong way, and works well
for side visibility when mounted in an appropriate orientation.

The cheapskate version of this is to mount some LED blinky at the bottom
of your bottle cage, shining upwards into a transparent water bottle.
The bottle and liquid scatter the light surprisingly well. I'm
surprised that nobody's marketed a commercial product on this principle
yet, would seem like an excellent way to sell even more CR2032s to
roadies...


Kim.
--

[Kim Wall]

On 05/11/2019 18:24, Kim Wall wrote:
> The cheapskate version of this is to mount some LED blinky at the bottom
> of your bottle cage, shining upwards into a transparent water bottle.
> The bottle and liquid scatter the light surprisingly well. I'm
> surprised that nobody's marketed a commercial product on this principle
> yet, would seem like an excellent way to sell even more CR2032s to
> roadies...

My mistake: <https://www.orb.bike/product/the-orb/>

USB rechargeable, not coin cells, thankfully.


Kim.
--

[Nick Maclaren]

In article <vbr89g-...@willow.ductilebiscuit.net>,

Kim Wall <k...@ductilebiscuit.net> wrote:
>
>> I don't understand why all multiple LED lights
>> have them all pointing in the same direction, except for a couple which
>> have some at right angles (which isn't what you need).
>
>Ease of manufacture. It's trivial to solder LEDs to a circuit board and
>then stick some plastic in front of them. Newer chip-on-board
>construction allows for some nice 'be seen' lights with a 2-dimensional
>areas of diffuse light rather than a row of point sources, though most
>seem fairly one-dimensional.

Well, yes, but why bother with multiple LEDs , then? I suppose that
the answer is 'marketing' :-(

>I mentioned the Fiber Flare upthread - that's one of the few that's made
>a real effort toward true omnidirectionality. It's a good choice if
>you're mounting a light on your clothing or saddlebag, where a
>directional light will inevitably point the wrong way, and works well
>for side visibility when mounted in an appropriate orientation.
>
>The cheapskate version of this is to mount some LED blinky at the bottom
>of your bottle cage, shining upwards into a transparent water bottle.
>The bottle and liquid scatter the light surprisingly well. I'm
>surprised that nobody's marketed a commercial product on this principle
>yet, would seem like an excellent way to sell even more CR2032s to
>roadies...

I have looked at some of the accident data, and tried observing and
analysing what the actual requirements are, and omnidirectionality
isn't it! From the side, reflective whatsits work a lot better,
because you can't compete with even the reflection of motor vehicle
headlights. What is really needed is to an angle of about 30 degrees
either side, and brighter than you would get from omnidirectionality,
to cope with vehicles entering and leaving sideroads and (secondarily)
sharp bends.

One VERY common case is a driver wanting to leave or enter a side road
when there is a stream of motor vehicles on the main road. A cyclist
may be following the last one, or may be being overtaken, or ... - and
only a bright light (as the driver sees it) is visible while his eyes
are adapted to headlight mode. Worse, if it is just round a bend
(even one with good visibility), the cyclist's front light may NEVER
point at the driver.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

[Kim Wall]

On 06/11/2019 12:19, Nick Maclaren wrote:
> I have looked at some of the accident data, and tried observing and
> analysing what the actual requirements are, and omnidirectionality
> isn't it! From the side, reflective whatsits work a lot better,
> because you can't compete with even the reflection of motor vehicle
> headlights. What is really needed is to an angle of about 30 degrees
> either side, and brighter than you would get from omnidirectionality,
> to cope with vehicles entering and leaving sideroads and (secondarily)
> sharp bends.

Reflectives are great once you're in the beam of the headlights, but
that's often too late for vehicles emerging from side roads. But they
weigh nothing and use no power, so you might as well have them. Those
3M spoke reflectors are nice.

> One VERY common case is a driver wanting to leave or enter a side road
> when there is a stream of motor vehicles on the main road. A cyclist
> may be following the last one, or may be being overtaken, or ... - and
> only a bright light (as the driver sees it) is visible while his eyes
> are adapted to headlight mode. Worse, if it is just round a bend
> (even one with good visibility), the cyclist's front light may NEVER
> point at the driver.

I think the only way you're likely to win that one is with a
head-mounted light, and pointing it at the driver.

The one that really worries me is on a multi-lane road, where you may be
passed by a vehicle in the other lane at just the wrong moment,
disappearing into the glare of their headlights. It's getting worse as
the distinction in colour temperature between cycle lights and motor
vehicle headlights disappears.

My general approach is to ride assuming that drivers emerging from
junctions haven't seem you, be it through adverse lighting conditions,
inattention, massive A-pillars or whatever - or think they're more
important than you and will bully their way out anyway - and be prepared
to manoeuvre or brake accordingly.


Kim.
--

[Nick Maclaren]

In article <96ra9g-...@willow.ductilebiscuit.net>,

Kim Wall <k...@ductilebiscuit.net> wrote:
>
>Reflectives are great once you're in the beam of the headlights, but
>that's often too late for vehicles emerging from side roads. But they
>weigh nothing and use no power, so you might as well have them. Those
>3M spoke reflectors are nice.

Yes, that's my point.

>> One VERY common case is a driver wanting to leave or enter a side road
>> when there is a stream of motor vehicles on the main road. A cyclist
>> may be following the last one, or may be being overtaken, or ... - and
>> only a bright light (as the driver sees it) is visible while his eyes
>> are adapted to headlight mode. Worse, if it is just round a bend
>> (even one with good visibility), the cyclist's front light may NEVER
>> point at the driver.
>
>I think the only way you're likely to win that one is with a
>head-mounted light, and pointing it at the driver.

Actually, my method works moderately well, even with the cheapest LED
lights; I have checked. I could do better with more, brighter lights
if it were important enough, but I almost never ride at night in much
traffic any more.

>The one that really worries me is on a multi-lane road, where you may be
>passed by a vehicle in the other lane at just the wrong moment,
>disappearing into the glare of their headlights. It's getting worse as
>the distinction in colour temperature between cycle lights and motor
>vehicle headlights disappears.

Yes, precisely. Another reason that cycle lanes are an obscenity.

>My general approach is to ride assuming that drivers emerging from
>junctions haven't seem you, be it through adverse lighting conditions,
>inattention, massive A-pillars or whatever - or think they're more
>important than you and will bully their way out anyway - and be prepared
>to manoeuvre or brake accordingly.

Well, yes, but urban riding often gives you very little opportunity,
because you are constrained in a lane and in a stream of traffic.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

[Zebee Johnstone]

In uk.rec.cycling.moderated on Wed, 6 Nov 2019 12:33:45 +0000

Kim Wall <k...@ductilebiscuit.net> wrote:
> On 06/11/2019 12:19, Nick Maclaren wrote:
>
>> One VERY common case is a driver wanting to leave or enter a side road
>> when there is a stream of motor vehicles on the main road. A cyclist
>> may be following the last one, or may be being overtaken, or ... - and
>> only a bright light (as the driver sees it) is visible while his eyes
>> are adapted to headlight mode. Worse, if it is just round a bend
>> (even one with good visibility), the cyclist's front light may NEVER
>> point at the driver.
>
> I think the only way you're likely to win that one is with a
> head-mounted light, and pointing it at the driver.
>

I use a blink and a steady light on the front, the idea being that a
strong blinking light can trigger the "hey! movement" bit of the
hindbrain.

My riding isn't generally on roads with a lot of traffic at night as
my night riding is commuting and that's optimised for least traffic.

Given crashes are rare no idea if blink and steady is working (or
blink and footflash in the case of the 'bents).

I have an overhead frame on the trike I call "anti SMIDSY bars".
I have USB powered blinking multicoloured fairy lights on those...
Judging by facial reaction on drivers and peds it is very visible!

Zebee

[Adam Funk]

The RSP Tourlight that I have has LEDs pointing backwards & at 45°
angles to the sides. (But that is unusual.)

[Nick Maclaren]

In article <gnjd9gx...@news.ducksburg.com>,

Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>>
>> There were (and are) good reasons to prefer incandescent - LEDs are
>> horribly directional, which is fine for headlights and NBG for all other
>> lights. My trick helps, but it's a bit of a nuisance, and still covers
>> only a restricted angle. I don't understand why all multiple LED lights
>> have them all pointing in the same direction, except for a couple which
>> have some at right angles (which isn't what you need).
>
>The RSP Tourlight that I have has LEDs pointing backwards & at 45°
>angles to the sides. (But that is unusual.)

Interesting. Still not really what is needed, but a lot better than
at right angles.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

[Adam Funk]

Well, it might not be exactly 45°!

[Sam Wilson]

Though of course that could be largely fixed for parallel mounted LEDs
by suitably shaped chunks of plastic in a diffuser. If it were a
Fresnel lens the chunks might not even have to be particularly chunky.

Sam

[Adam Funk]

Now I envision a miniature lighthouse on my pannier rack!

[asr...@yahoo.co.uk]

On Tuesday, November 5, 2019 at 6:30:15 PM UTC, Kim Wall wrote:
>
> I mentioned the Fiber Flare upthread - that's one of the few that's made

> a real effort toward true omnidirectionality...
>
> Kim.
> --

It also seems to be one that is no longer available.