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11-07-07, 03:53 PM
Hi all. Thanks to daylight savings time (someone please show me the savings...) it's dark on my evening joyrides and I need a light. I have a Cateye EL500 light and, like others on this forum, I lament its highly directional illumination pattern and lack of a blinky mode.
Performance has the ViewPoint Flare 5 and it seems to be popular and recommended over the EL500 and is a lot cheaper. I've seen some positive reviews of the Flare 5 on BF, but some of these refer to the "ViewPoint Flare", not the "ViewPoint Flare 5". Is there a difference or are people just too lazy to type the '5'?
When I bought the Cateye at Performance online the description for it seemed impressive - 1 LED! 1000 Candela power! Blinds you if you look at it! Wow! (Then again, those $1 LED keychains will blind you if you look directly at them too...) In my experience, when the batteries are fully charged it is a decent light for <18mph riding on relatively clear roads. However the narrow beam and lack of a blinky mode means that if you aim it at the road it's much less likely for an oncoming car to notice you, and if you aim it up at the cars, you might annoy the driver slightly but not see where you are going at all. And when the batteries get down to less than 50% it's kind of useless for either purpose.
So can anyone compare the Flash 5 to the EL 500? Which has the better combination of a be-seen light and a see-the-road light? Also, does the Flash 5 fit oversized bars with 31.8mm diameter? The Cateye EL 500 does not by default but Cateye sells clamps for oversized bars separately.
Performance has the ViewPoint Flare 5 and it seems to be popular and recommended over the EL500 and is a lot cheaper. I've seen some positive reviews of the Flare 5 on BF, but some of these refer to the "ViewPoint Flare", not the "ViewPoint Flare 5". Is there a difference or are people just too lazy to type the '5'?
When I bought the Cateye at Performance online the description for it seemed impressive - 1 LED! 1000 Candela power! Blinds you if you look at it! Wow! (Then again, those $1 LED keychains will blind you if you look directly at them too...) In my experience, when the batteries are fully charged it is a decent light for <18mph riding on relatively clear roads. However the narrow beam and lack of a blinky mode means that if you aim it at the road it's much less likely for an oncoming car to notice you, and if you aim it up at the cars, you might annoy the driver slightly but not see where you are going at all. And when the batteries get down to less than 50% it's kind of useless for either purpose.
So can anyone compare the Flash 5 to the EL 500? Which has the better combination of a be-seen light and a see-the-road light? Also, does the Flash 5 fit oversized bars with 31.8mm diameter? The Cateye EL 500 does not by default but Cateye sells clamps for oversized bars separately.