Originally Posted by
ItsJustMe
I really want 300 to 400 lumens up front at least, and that's in the easy parts of my ride. On the challenging bits, I want 800 or more.
... then what you want really isn't offered by any current dynamo-only lights of any sort that I'm aware of. I don't know of any dynamos that put out more than 3 watts, and at 100 lumens/watt for good modern LEDs -- that's 300 lumens. I mean, somebody could make a more powerful dynamo, but too much more drag and people won't like it -- even 3 watts from a 50% efficient dynamo is six watts of drag, which is going to be definitely noticeable.
And I imagine that you're aware of all of that.
That said, 160 lumens is way more than the reelights I have -- if it's 160 lumens steady, then that's well into the "help me see" category of light, where the reelights I have are strictly "help me be seen" lights. I'd guess that the reelights I have are maybe 25 lumens (well, the white front light) while flashing, and they're only on like 20% of the time (they flash), so an average of 5 lumens or so? (Just a guess, I haven't measured it.)