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The reality with life seemingly getting even busier precious moments to spend riding seem thin on the ground 🙁
The plan is to try and get a couple of early morning rides in before work. 😀
Now I need a light. I need a light sufficient enough to ride by on the road and off road.
When I say off road I mean some wooded bits (non technical) and some open fields.
I am, if honest, totally bamboozled by lights.
At MM I borrowed a Hope something light and used that with my dog walking head torch. Worked fine and was actually my fastest lap!
The Hope light I used was a couple of years old and now out of production.
So looking for a new one.
Is 200 lumens enough to ride by on its own?
I quite like the size, burn time etc of these:
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But have no understanding of what 200 lumens equates to!
Any simpletons guides would be much appreciated.
I won't ask for recommendations as this is not a "what light thread"! 😉
Last week I bought one of smudges 1000 lumen xml lights, maiden voyage last night and was chuffed to bits. 4 settings (high/med/low/strobe) for £67 delivered you cant go wrong... 😀
1000 lumens is easily enough for what you are describing, I'd say 200 isnt enough.
Fenred - have you got a link?
Any idea on burn time?
Used to nightride with 2 x 6W halogens so 200lumens should do you 🙂
Did run a joystick on it's own for a while, supposedly 240lumens dunno if thats a real 240 or "theoretical" 240, was ok for slow-medium paced stuff but you don't want to be doing fast rocky stuff with it
500- 600 real lumens( ie 900 as quoted by DX) is plenty. 200 is barely enough
You also need to remember that lumens is not a linear scale but exponential - i.e. a 400 lumen light is not twice as bright as a 200lmn light - far from it.
As TJ has also indicated claimed and actual are far off from each other in many cases which muddies the water too.
As an indicator - my exposure joystick from a few years ago was an advertised 225lmn. It was fine for road commuting on lit roads and near a built up areas but not really enough in the proper dark. Same off road when caught out with just that with me. I could ride, just a bit slowly. The latest joystick is 325lmn and not withstanding what I said above the little bit extra means I'd be happy on road with it and could just about survive off road too at slower speeds.
6 or 7 years ago my L&M arc light at 550lmn was considered so bright by mates that it was thought of as an unfair advantage and created problems for others if I road behind them as they were riding in their own shadow all the time. I could have coped with less. The fact that I have even more now is just a luxury.
If you're on a budget, there are 1000lm XML lights going on ebay for ~£35. Once you've got that many lumens, it becomes more about what you do with them than how many you have.
Lumens is not a very good indicator of how good (subjectively) a light will be. 500 lumens spread over the area of a football pitch is not particularly effective and light density (lux) can also be misleading if all you have is a super-bright hotspot.
Power is nothing without control as they say.
I have an elderly Hope Vision 1 which is rated at 200 lumens or so and is fine for fireroady-type stuff at moderate speeds. Wildy overpriced though for what it is. Have a look at MagicShine MJ-808 - everybody and his dog has got one they are a bit primitive but they do the job.
If you are riding solo you won't need as much power as some people would have you believe.
Been riding in the hills round Edinburgh and Glentress with 2x Light and Motion Stella 120.
On occation I've also lent one to a mate and ridden with just the one light, so 120 lumens, and never felt I've not had enough light for anything.
If riding with mates with more powerful lights you can end up riding in your own shadow if you've got 1000 lmns right on your tail but other than that they're fine.
If I was buying again though I would go for the Stella 200 just for the Li-on battery rather than the nickle of the 120. Better charge times and what looks like a more waterproof connection.
I'd suggest not buying the £35 XML, as several thread have noted they are that cheap for a reason (materials & build quality). Smudge's XML unit is very good and as he's UK based he will deal with issues asap (not that I've heard complaints about his units) I'd recommend either that or one from Dealextreme for around the £45 mark.
The more expensive eBay one won't guarantee better quality, they may just be marking the price up more..
EDIT: In contrast to rocketman's comment, I wouldn't recommend a MJ-808, as it uses the older P7 LED's, very good for the money, just aren't as good as the newer XML ones for not a lot more money. By all means get the XML equiped MJ-808E though.
also depends what you want to do, if you want to blat around at near daytime speeds on technical stuff you'll be wanting 1000lumens and upwards, if you want "the nightride effect" tunnel vision, tamer trails and fairly sedate speeds the Stella will probably be fine.
I've got the Light & Motion Stella 300 which is the one up from that one in your picture.They have a really nice beam so you don't just get bright you get usable light if that makes sense.Where they fall down though is when someone is behind you with a really bright light,you can't see jack then but your own shadow....But the burn times are great...
pah. i used to ride dirt jumps drops shore and skinnies with 2*5w halogens.
as long as you can roughly make out whats comign you`ll be fine.
if you are riding new trails its a bit sketchy but meh - thats the fun bit!
i now have a 700lm trout diy special and i only use it on lower setting 500lm as i cant tell the brightness differance.
+1 for the smudge light, I have been astounding by the value, esp compared to Exposure etc.
I have seen people refer to problems with the £35 XML lights, but has anyone had any bad experiences with them??
Aye, you don't need much light at all... And riding with low light can be really nice. But it just depends what you're after, will you be happy with bare minimums or will you want more.
500 or so is what I got out of my first P7 light, and that was the first one I'd had when I felt like the darkness wasn't massively impacting my riding... I could ride with less but I was definately riding in the dark with a light, rather than riding in the light.
Thing is... These days a powerful light isn't expensive. My Magicshine XML was about £35, hard to see any justification to settle for less than that now (I wouldn't neccesariyl recommend that exact light- very spotlighty, the older P7 lights are weaker but better allrounders)
I used to nightride on a single eveready D-cell light. Probably the same a 20 lumen light now. I went through the first cateye halogens etc, but honestly, once you get to a modern 1000 lumen light its like night and day... I can ride almost as well at midnight as I can in the middle of the day. Oh, and the 900 lumen 806 light would be ok by it's self, however I chuck mine on the helmet and run an Exposure on the bars to give a total (estimated real) 1600 lumens. Why? 'cos it was cheap on the classifieds in June!