light review please

[zaskar rider]

Has anyone tried one of these lights ?
and are they any good ( for the money )
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/mountain-Bike-Cyc ... 9535487644

i like the idea of not having a battery pack to fix to the bike

cheers for any info

[Shreds]

For me the rechargeable Cateye 610 is very bright and performs beautifully. Fails instantly though when flat, but since I use two it is not a problem. I recharge it every week. I bought it on the grounds of brightness and have been very impressed over the past three years. Not cheap at around £100 but what price safety?
At the Olympia cycle show I discovered something even brighter though, USE make one called the Six Pack which is so bright as to be retina damaging, absolutely stunning. But at £450 a shot I will stick with my Cateyes. They do make some less bright and cheaper versions, but the top one is specifically for off road use. There is probably some useless bit of law that says you cant have bike lights that bright, (but it's ok for cars and lorries to blind you on a bike).

[gentlegreen]

Cateye 610 is very bright and performs beautifully.
<...>
USE make one called the Six Pack which is so bright as to be retina damaging, absolutely stunning. But at £450 .

I don't ride offroad, but I do ride in total darkness.

I find I want 2 x 3 watt Cree LED lamps just for dipped beam on familiar roads and in combination with my third 3 watt "high beam" is fine for finding my way in the woods, but not for downhill on untried paths.

That Cateye is 2 x 1 watt with clever optics - in my book barely adequate even if it was just for commuting.

The Exposure Six Pack is 6 x 3 watt = 18 watts.

The Seoul P7 is probably the way to go for a single lamp these days, after that it's a question of how reliable. The new Magicshine is reckoned to be OK - previous ones apparently needed work.

Two of those would presumably equal the exposure - though Chinese torches often come with exaggerated specs.

(Apologies for my unscientific use of watts)

[gilesjuk]

It's just a torch.

I have a few of them and none of them has a very good beam pattern or high quality.

[gentlegreen]

It's just a torch.

I have a few of them and none of them has a very good beam pattern or high quality.

This particular advert is trying to look like a Seoul P7 lamp similar to the Magicshine, but doesn't say "Seoul P7" anywhere.
it also has a suspiciously near-identical handlebar clamp to the "5 Watt" torch I recently bought on Ebay - which turned out to be only 1 watt.

I certainly wouldn't pay £55 - plus for it.

In my case I'm actually happy with what I bought as I only paid a fiver for it and it casts an impressive beam - but a crude one - it's a naked LED with a parabolic reflector that tidies up the spill - so a bright blob plus a halo.

[gilesjuk]

Better off with something like this, good make, spares and warranty no problem:

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=42206

Exposure do seem to be the leaders in powerful all in one lights.

This being their most powerful at 1,800 lumens:

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=54852

This is a popular light too:

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=24391

[zaskar rider]

thanks for your help folks.

i think i will wait and save more money for a better model

[macnmud]

This torch version is indeed an old Magicshine Light. I think these are largely obsolete now as they have been superseeded by much better lights from Magicshine.

I ride with one of these:

http://www.magicshinebikelights.co.uk/magicshine-mj-808-900-lumen-bike-light-set.php?item=1

It uses the same LED as the torch so is the same brightness, but is a much smaller and neater package, much easier to mount on the handlebars. In my personal experience it is very reliable, weatherproof and the output is amazing.

It does use a separate battery, but I really don't find that a problem. Much better than having that huge torch on the handlebars. The battery has a bag and velcro and it fits really well under the top tube. There isn't any excess cable to worry about and I simply use a single velcro strap to keep the cable running nicely under the top tube. When I'm riding I don't even notice the battery and cable are there.

Hope this is some help to you.

[greendragon]

[quote="gentlegreen
. . . (Apologies for my unscientific use of watts)[/quote]

You are certainly forgiven for my part @gentlegreen. I find this whole scene thoroughly confusing, with some manufacturers specifying in lux, some in lumens, and I have seen both candlepower and candelas too. It makes it utterly impossible to compare different products. I reckon there's a strong trading standards case to be made for some consumer-protection legislation to bang these b----y cowboys' heads together to get some meaningful (and intelligible) consistency into how their products are presented to the market. I've not yet found one of them with the responsibility and integrity that their sales literature or website info includes any guidance on this or quotes more than one set of units - not one; they don't seem to care that the very lengths they go to to obscure the issue brands them all as rip-off merchants (which of course would also go far towards explaining the prices).

I don't know how much clout CTC carries to mount a successful campaign on this front, but it seems to me it would be a damned sight more useful road safety matter to chase up than much of the petty legislation that gets implemented in this corrupt society to "protect" the manufacturing cowboys as well as the politicians' banking and finance cronies.

Meanwhile it's a very long time indeed since I did any of this stuff in school physics lessons, and to be honest I'm not sure how far I could make head or tail of it even then! I therefore tend to work on the very rough rule-of-thumb assumption that, other things being equal, the useful light output of these things is, in general, going to be more or less in proportion to the power consumption (for any one type of lighting element - e.g: comparing leds with each other, but not comparing them with, say, halogen or whatever). I know 'every manufacturer' will say this isn't reliable because 'their' product is 'more efficient than the competition', but if they aren't prepared to give us meaningful data how else can we compare? So, on that basis, I consider @gentlegreen's use of watts more useful (and honest) than any of the alternatives unless and until someone comes up with anything more useful - the only limitation with this approach is that, as often as not, the makers don't tell us much about power consumption either, or at best obscure it in (admittedly important) run-time data, leaving us to work it out for ourselves as best we can.

Apologies if anyone considers I'm threadjacking with this rant, but it seems to me entirely relevant to ask: does anyone know of a link to a comprehensive explanation of how to compare all these different things in order to reach meaningful informed decisions? (And it doesn't just apply to mountain biking either - this could, and perhaps should, very usefully have been posted on the "does anyone know?" forum instead).

[gilesjuk]

You're better off demoing some lights, some bike shops let you test them.

Personally I find many of the brands have misleading claims and poor reliability.

Ayups are good and bright enough for singletrack riding. Simple, lightweight and reliable. Plus there's an upgrade path, you can have your lights upgraded as new developments are released.

http://www.ayup-lights.com/

[gentlegreen]

I had to make my own to get lamps that met my needs for sensible money.

For off-road use things are a lot simpler as you just need something really bright and if the later Magicshines are as good as people say, it wouldn't be worth my while if I was starting from scratch.

Beware of Ebay though - it's full of fakes .

[gilesjuk]

if the later Magicshines are as good as people say, it wouldn't be worth my while if I was starting from scratch.

They're just cheap, it is the only reason for their popularity. They're not an optimal design in terms of design, optics and quality.

Well known MTB light designs are race proven. If anything breaks lights it is off road racing.

[zaskar rider]

thanks to you all for helping me not throw money away !!!
im saving now for a set of exposure toro mk2's ive seen the reviews and this system looks the job and with a decent run time.

thanks again