ben4345

Especially when car headlights are anywhere between 400 - 4000 lumens out the front, EACH! Yet, I see people here claim that a 400lm bicycle light will get you into trouble on the streets. Double standards?

agent pombero

Car lights are not pointed horizontally into infinity. They're angled so that drivers can see the road. You too can do the same thing with your powerful lights on your bicycle. Set your lights so that it falls onto the ground at a good distance for your riding conditions. If helmet mounted you can tilt your head backwards a little bit to have the light completely horizontal if needed.

Mr. Fly

Because car "low beam" headlamps are required to be focused and controlled, whereas most bike LED lights are like flashlights, with a conically-shaped beam with a lot of spillover that not only does nothing to light up the road, it goes into the eyes of oncoming traffic users (cars, cyclists, everyone). Essentially, you're running around with "high beams" on, and if you're a driver, you know how annoying that can be.

If you really want to see what a relatively small amount of lumens can do when properly shaped, investigate the lights that are StZVO-approved. Examples include the Schmidt Edelux and Philips Saferide (video). Especially for the dynamo-driven versions, the lumens are restricted because power input is restricted; however, these lights still perform brilliantly (no pun intended) simply because they don't waste about half their energy on lighting up trees and blinding oncoming traffic.

ben4345

You know you can point your light downwards.
Most decent bicycle lights I've seen are diffused for a wider area that also have some kind of over spill shield.
Also, most SUV or large trucks, because they are higher off the ground, still seem to hit me in the eyes.

Mr. Hairy Legs

I'm seeing more and more cars driving towards me with 4 lights blasting my eyes instead of 2, and I don't care at all what drivers think of my single 550 lumen headlight.

For pedestrians and cyclists, however, I always tilt the light down while I'm passing them.

I-Like-To-Bike

Maybe you are seeing more and more cars driving towards you with 4 lights blasting as a REACTION to your refusal to tilt your own blinding light down, ya think?

jyl

My lights are pointed down to illuminate the road about 30-50 feet in front of me. They don't dazzle drivers any more than auto low beams do. If you are really worried, you can use tape or paint to mask off the upper 1/4 of the lens.

wphamilton

I actually had a car "flash" signal me the other night, that my light was too bright. I wasn't actually on the road at the time but on a parallel path. Granted that's just one out of a hundred, but the bright flashlight headlights are more powerful than we think from the oncoming perspective. I've adjusted it down slightly.

It seems to me that given the very bright flashlights now available, there should be a market for universal reflector/lenses that would focus and shape the beams like traditional headlights. I'd buy one.

Mr. Hairy Legs

Nope.

CliftonGK1

The difficulty in that, is there's no "universal" standard for lights, and when using a multi-LED light head it's very tough to make a cutoff type lamp. Take a look at the SON Edelux or any of the B&M IQ series of lamps and how they're constructed...
They use a single, rear-facing LED with a focused reflector to keep the light on the road. Once you point a light source forward, you're getting top-spill. When you start getting into the higher power ( >/= 800L ) lights, you're using multiple LEDs in there and they all face forward with their own individual reflectors. Focusing that sort of light to just the roadway would take some mighty unique lensing. Even if each reflector cup had a miniature top shield to it, there would still be significant top spill of light.

All that said, now that my commute puts me on 15 miles with no MUP travel, I haven't noticed any issues with fellow commuters who use insanely bright lights. There are some people using at least 600L on both bars and helmet, and when they're in the opposing lane of traffic there's not a problem. Just as a comparison test to see if there would be issues (honking or flashing of high beams being my indicator) between a cutoff light and a high power symmetrical light, I used my DiNotte XML-3 coming home from work the other night. 1000 lumens, no cutoffs, handlebar mounted and pointed about 30 feet out for the center spot. Not a single complaint (to my knowledge) versus my usual B&M IQ Cyo mounted just below my front rack. In seeing the spread pattern on the XML-3 light, the outer rim of the spot covered 3/4 of a traffic lane when I was sitting on the passenger tire track; so I don't think it's really a wide enough bright spot to irritate oncoming drivers unless I pointed it straight forward like a photon torpedo.
I think the bigger issue with the superpower lights is with people who use them on 8 foot wide multi-use-paths, because in that situation there's no chance that oncoming traffic is escaping the retina-searing power of the lamp's main spot.

droy45

Most of the good quality bicycle lights > than 200 lumens need to be pointed down about 30-50 ft in front of you. It should not bother oncoming drivers that way. I have 350 lumens and thats plenty for commuting. I would have liked to had the 500 lumen one instead but I'm very satisfied with this one. All the high powered 600-1600 lumen lights are more geared toward mountain bike riders using them on single track or racing applications.

unterhausen

The main reason I have a shaped beam headlight is that it puts the light where you need it, not everywhere.

now that I have a shaped beam with a reasonable number of lumens I get a lot more people flashing me. My light is still considerably less powerful than a car low beam, I think there is some stupidity involved.

GFish

My commute is 15 miles one-way (30 RT), 9 miles of that is a 2 lane highway. The ride home starts at 11:30pm, so lights are mandatory year round. During the summer, a single Maginshine MJ-808 provided adequate lighting. This light is advertised as 900 lumens, but independent testing rated it at 500 lumens.

During the fall rains and fog, visibility was still adequate with the MJ-808, except the effective beam, or illumination at distance was reduced. Instead of casting a long beam out to 60 plus feet, the effective area was closer, at apx. 20 - 30 feet, depending on weather.

I noticed a co-worker / friend was commuting with 2 lights. He informed me that one was set close and the other set for distance. He claimed 2 lights improved his night visibility over the winter. Hmmm...... that sounded like a great idea.

I'm now using a second light I picked up off Ebay, advertised as 1200 lumens. It is a little brighter then the MJ-808. Both lights are mounted to the bars. One aimed close and the 2nd a little further out. I really like the extra illumination and believe this helps on wet foggy rides in the dark.

Honestly, if someone claims a 200 lumen light is adequate, then they must be riding on city streets with lights. For dark roads, you need enough lumens to brighten the road to stay safe.

As for bothering cars with the lights.....so far, hasn't been a problem. I don't cast the beams to infinity, they're pointed down to cast enough illumination to ride safely.

gecho

I'm getting a 1000 lumen Dinotte XML-3, my primary motivation being runtime not maximum brightness. Most lights seem to have similar rated running times at the maximum setting, but cold weather dramatically reduces battery life. Many times in the winter I can't even finish my ride on the middle setting of my Stella 200 before it falls back to the lowest setting.

Even on the 200 lumen max setting, there are times where I feel I could use even more light, particularly on wet roads or new asphalt.

Riding the MUP at night during the summer I could really use a helmet light in addition to one on the bars. There are many sharp turns that you essentially enter blind because the handlebar is pointed in the wrong direction.

wphamilton

I've been imagining a double reflector setup that would attach at the flashlight lens. How bulky it would be, how effective, how much loss in illumination I have no idea but conceptually it seems possible. Since bicycle headlights are superior to flashlights because of the beam shaping, I'd like to see an accessory to shape the beam even if less effective.

I think you're dead on that none of these lights are a hazard in regular traffic, other than very bright flashlights that are aimed at the drivers. And on the narrow passage of 2-way bike ways.

rm -rf

Try this, and you'll see that it doesn't help at all. Aim your light at a wall, and use some cardboard to block part of the lens. The top of the beam isn't affected at all.

Even a shade projecting in front of the light needs to be 8-12 inches long to really cut off the top of the beam if you want the rest of the beam to reach far down the road.




I have this Dinotte light. It's very bright, over 1000 lumens on high. And compared to a Magicshine (which is actually about 500-600 lumens), it's beam is at least three times as wide with very even coverage, and then it tails off gradually to a very wide spill light. It even somewhat lights up the sidewalk when I'm riding in the street, and the wide coverage works pretty good on turns, too. So it's not designed to be a 30-40 mph high speed downhill light--it doesn't project that far.

Surprisingly, I've never had a car flash their high beams at me, even with the light projecting way down the road. I was worried about this when I got the light and saw how wide the beam was. If I prop the bike by the road and view the light from 100 feet away, it seems somewhat brighter than typical car headlights, but not nearly as bright as car high beams.

The 1000-1100 lumen high beam is very good when riding in the city. Unless I'm going very fast, it's aimed in front of the bike, brightly lighting 10 feet through 40 feet ahead. It's a blue-white light that contrasts with typical yellowish car headlights, and when aimed down like this, it lights up the street as bright as the car headlights. I think the pool of light helps me to be seen, even from the back, and I don't lose sight of the road surface by oncoming car headlights at small rises in the road.

On dark country roads, I'll use 50% power, about 550 lumens. If I aim the 1100 lumen 100% beam downwards, it's actually too bright close to the bike, messing with my night vision. Aimed straight forward, I can see far down the road, but half the light is going up in the air. But I'll switch on high when the road gets twisty or the surface is bad.

For night group rides, I'll switch it to 25% power, about 275 lumens and aim it downwards. I made a small shade about 3 inches long out of a piece of black plastic frozen dinner tray, held on with a rubber band. I think it helps somewhat to keep the light out of co-rider's mirrors when it's aimed downwards. And the 100% power is really nice when I'm at the front--it's wide enough to cover the full lane.



So you had it pointed downward, too. But it's still bright at driver eye level. Perhaps the wider beam cuts the intensity just enough at a distance.

David Bierbaum

I think you could get away with more lumens, if it was a bigger light. I think bicycle headlights are just about 1/4 or less the area of your typical car (or even motorcycle) headlight, so a car's headlight doesn't have all that light concentrated in one small area, and the apparent brightness isn't as great for any given amount of lumens.

I do wonder if they make an actual "headlight" style headlight for bicycles, styled after motorcycle headlights.

Another thing I've noticed, since I've started seeing LED headlights on cars, is that the light from these LED headlights seem "harsher" on my eyes than the light from incandescent headlights.

CliftonGK1

The B&M Big Bang.

no motor?

200 lumens is not too bright. That's just getting started.

gecho

It seems like every other manufacturer has offered 2 or 3 generations of product over the same time period B&M's current offerings have been available. I love their beam patterns, but I wonder if their products are becoming under powered given their cost.

david58

I agree - I use two of the (advertised) 900 lumen magic shine lamps, one on the bars and one on my helmet. I usually use the light on the bars on low, the helmet on medium or strobe, depending on time of day and the conditions. But most certainly I would not want to ride with only 200 lumens. I use the light for both seeing and being seen - and 200 lumens doesn't do either to my satisfaction.

agent pombero

Agreed. For city riding I think the minimum is 700lm on the handlebars (solid beam) and 700lm on the helmet (flash).

Mr. Fly

It is not necessarily impossible. The Philips Saferide light I mentioned has two downward-facing LEDs and individual reflector groups. It is still StZVO-approved, meaning the light beam is flat-ish and has a cutoff to mitigate blinding oncoming traffic. There's more than one way to skin a cat; however, I believe it's really a matter of cost. It's simply much cheaper to slap together commodity LEDs and reflectors than to design/manufacture proper systems. A single visit to Deal Extreme will demonstrate how cheap these commodity items are and how much additional cost a nice package entails (for name brand products).

And for those who say just point your lights down, I hope you're not discounting the fact that the single bright spot created by this setup can potentially reduce your field of vision. A single bright spot creates too much contrast, leading to great vision in the spot but reduced visibility everywhere else. Of course, that sometimes leads one to think the light isn't bright enough...it's really best to distribute the light correctly and efficiently rather than go into lumen wars.

BassNotBass

If >200 lumens is too bright, maybe the user should more attentive to where the beam is focused.

a1penguin

+1 I have a 400ish lumen light on my helmet and try to keep it pointed away from drivers when I am at an intersecion.