Originally Posted by
cyccommute
You are getting hung up on details.
You provided them, I disagreed with some. But OK, we can move on ...
You'll get no argument from me that lumens is a better way of measuring the light output. Lux might even be better.
No, lumens are better than lux. For example, a laser would have an extremely high lux output -- but be useless as a bike light.
Personally, I'd prefer the law stick to the old `visible from X feet away' where X is at least 500. At least that's something the police can understand, and doesn't penalize more efficient lights.
A Deal Extreme MTE P7 SSR light is only $35 (about double the price of the 1W Blaze) and has almost 100 times the light.
It's $35 + $10 for two batteries + $12 for a charger. And the Blaze is about $32-$40 (plus two AA batteries), so it's less than twice as expensive, even when you consider that it costs more than $35 to get the DE light going.
And it's only about 8x the light -- 400 vs 50 lumens. But sure, if 100x vs. 8x is simply a detail, I guess I'm hung up on them.
I don't know why people bother with something like the Blaze except as a back-up light.
The DE light you referred to is fragile -- vibrations can cause it to stop working, and will cause it to switch modes. It takes non-standard batteries that may be difficult to get if you're on a long trip away from your charger. It's beam pattern is far from optimal -- it's spread too wide, so you have to aim it down more to keep from blinding people. And the $1.55 mounts are acceptable, but a good bump could still send it flying. If you actually use the high mode, it only lasts about 90 minutes? (The low mode puts out, what, 100 lumens and lasts 8 hours? That's more practical, but it's only twice the light of the Blaze.)
The Blaze 1w is far more rugged and has a far better beam pattern -- so it has 1/8th the light, but it uses it better. And it's got the best flash pattern I've ever seen, if you're into flashing lights. It's a damn good light -- it's just not as bright as some others.
The Deal Extreme light is good, but it's not perfect. Certainly, I would never ride with just it -- I've had it break on me too many times. (So far, they've been things I could fix myself, but it wasn't something I'd want to do on the side of the road in the dark.) So I use the Blaze 1w as a backup light -- but it gets pressed into service far more often than a backup light should.