Advocacy & Safety - Hello

Hi everyone I am new to the forum. I found these forums a couple days ago and have learned a lot by reading the threads. I almost always ride at night due to my work hours. I prefer to ride at night just because it is quieter and also the temperature is cooler. I have been using two lighting systems, but one is on it's way out and together they can be a bit heavier than I would like. I use a vistalite 15watt spot and also a cygolite that has a 10 watt flood and a 20 watt spot. The vistalite is on its way out, the battery sometimes runs for 1.5 hrs , but lately it can crap out at any time. Also the bulb housing is cracked and falling apart. This is the second one I had form that company that crapped out on me, while the cygolite has ahd much more use is older than all others I have and still runs fine. Well anyway I decided it's time to get a new light that is lighter and puts out plenty of light. I read all about many brands and types and finally came up with what I wanted. I wanted a helmet mount and small battery to fit in my camelbak so I went with the niterider cyclone hid+led system. I spent a long time debating on which to get and in the end narrowed it to the niterider or l&m. I hope my choice of the niterider turns out to be a good one because the price is more than I should have spent, but If it makes for a safer ride then It was worth it. I havent used a helmet mount , but found myself wanting one b/c of not seeing around turns and such. Plus the other day I almost ran down a skunk in the trail and didnt see him until I was too close. Anyway I'm glad to find these forums and I hope I made a good purchase. I got the light from performance with the 20% off coupon that I found here. Thanks all for some interesting reading here.

Hi MaximusHQ! Welcome to the forum!

I too prefer to ride at night. The Florida sun(not to mention the absurdly insane traffic where I live) can be quite the adversary. It's much more comfortable to do 40-50 miles under a canopy of stars, don't ya think?

You made a great choice going with Niterider. It was one of my choices a few months back, but I went with a mid-priced Cygolite system instead. Did you sign up for Performance team membership? It's a good idea if you want to be able to save more cash in the future.

Look out for those polecats and ride safely!

Hi LittleGinseng. Thanks for welcoming me to the forum. I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the niterider cylcone. For the first time today i mounted my 15 watt spot to my helmet just to see how a helmet mount would be. It was cool to be able to turn my head and see things that I would have missed with only a bar mount. The only thing that I didnt like was that it was foggy and it made it hard to see with the helmet light, so I ran my cygolite bar mount light too. This is the first time this year I have run into this heavy a fog on the trail, so it isnt that happens a lot. If we did have fog here all the time I would definately want a bar mounted light. LittleGinseng how do you like your cygolite? Is it the hid setup? I also looked at them and thought of getting the hid light they make. I probally would have bought one if I could have found one with a small battery for helmet mounting. I am still amazed that my halogen cygolite setup is still running strong. It even survived a house fire, no heat damage, but it was completely coated in black soot like crud from the smoke. I took it completely apart and cleaned everything and it worked great. I haven't signed up for the performance team membership yet, but it looks like something I might do. Thanks for the reply.

Maximus, I went with the Cygolite Night Rover Nicad Extra instead of the MUCH more expensive HID setup. The circuits that I ride at night are very well lit, with the exception of a few really cool areas where the road runs completely in the dark with swamp on both sides. I just switch the high beam on until the street lights reappear.
So far I've been able to get a runtime of almost 4 hours, switching between low and high beams.

Cheers!