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I was wondering what the best beam pattern is if I have two night lights, one on my head and one on my bars? I am thinking it might be best to have a diffuse pattern on my bar light and a spot on my head?
Sounds about right, depending on what your tracks are like.
My local stuff is quite tight with quite a lot of slow/switchback type stuff so have a fairly wide helmet light too as a proper spot beam can be too tight sometimes.
I am thinking it might be best to have a diffuse pattern on my bar light and a spot on my head?
That's kinda what I run, though it needs to be a decent spread and depth for the bar. I set it up so the spot helmet light is within the furthest away part of the bar light beam when riding straight, level tracks so the bar gives details of the mid to foreground, but the spot can extend a bit further when I look up.
The helmet light I find is more useful to see what's coming in twisty singletrack, then the bar light illuminates what I need to ride over.
I previoulsy used a really bright bar light, but found a helmet/bar combi by far the best.
Brilliant cheers for your help, i wanted to make sure I wasn't going down the wrong track...
Is it possible to slighlty diffuse/spread a strong spot with some frosted film or it that just silly?
You can, but you'll also lose some output
If your light is bright enough in the first place then you'll be fine with some frosted type film
Is there a lot of heat generated by that lamp? You wouldn't want to ride with your head on fire...
It would provide a fair bit of illumination tho?
I tried this but found it worked better the other way round tbh
wider on head to see whats coming up as trails are never straight (solarstorm x2)
spot on bars to see whats in front of the wheel (aldi special)
Make sure both lights have the same beam colour as well. Neutral White (preferable) or Cool White are the most common but mixing one of each doesn't work so well.
Green is preferable. Better at resolving features, rocks, bumps on the trail.
ok that great I appreciate the advice... ill try not to let is singe my hair! I am a bit worried the spot I have bought is a bit too tight? if it is 10 feet in front of me it is about 2 feet wide, but cant really be buggered to send it back. Do you think this is unworkable? I suppose the upside is it will light up quite a distance.
I like a very tight spot beam on the helmet. My favourite one ( now sadly in need of updated leds) is tighter than that. You need to get the angle set just right tho so the spot is right in the centre of your vision when on the bike.
groovey, I think I'll keep it and give it a go, cheers...