Originally Posted by
JohnJ80
I'm a big believer in reliability in bike lighting. But then I ride in a rural area with lots of dark country roads. You lose a light (and it's happened to me) and you are stuck as in STUCK.
Yup, I agree. I've had my headlight die before. At the time I had a Dinotte 200 up front, and a 140L in the back. The ONLY way I was able to proceed was to move my 140L to the front and ride slowly by the red light of the taillight.
I now run with a P7 flashlight as backup to my MagicShine. The only time the MS has failed me was when I forgot to charge the battery for too many days in a row, but I don't care if I had a $1000 light, I'd still have a flashlight as a backup.
As a bonus, I use the P7 in flash mode when I get to areas where I feel that left cross and pullout collisions are an increased risk. Having one light on constant and one in flash mode is quite visible but I think less irritating than just a light in flash mode (during daylight times; obviously at night you can't run with just one light in flash mode anyway).