vol

Thanks for the information. I was thinking about getting one, but in that case, maybe not yet. I don't want to keep worrying about losing the light/battery when leaving my bike somewhere on the streets of NYC. Maybe when I have another bike...

pityr

Strap it to your helmet. The ChinaShines typically come with a helmet mount.

vol

Thanks, but then I'll have to get a helmet first

pityr

lol, I wouldn't want to drive in NYC without a helmet much less ride a bike. Used to call it "playing bumper tag".

vol

For driving, helmet wouldn't help. You'd need a bullet-proof vest.

david58

This!

Break down and get two lights, one for your helmet and one for your bars. You can run them on lower power, and since your helmet light will point where you look, as you look at the road you will end up with 2X the intensity. You can also use the headlamp to zap cars at intersections to make them aware you are there. And the constant light on the handlebars provide you with visibility.

At dusk, I usually turn one lamp to flash and put the other on low or medium. I like being able to direct a lamp at cars that are coming in from side streets - last week, I had several actually put their rig in reverse and back up a few feet when they realized they were in the bike lane. Yep, considerate drivers.

I am not totally thrilled with the battery life, though - I can usually get just over one round trip (1.5hrs in winter) with the light on medium. I think maybe I can get 2.25 hours at medium, much less than described on the Geoman specs. Long enough for my commutes, but not long enough for long rides.

I am looking at getting a magicshine tail light, as well. Duno how that will hit me on battery life, but I would like a good, strong constant tail light to go with my array of blinkies.

Leebo

I've had good luck with the night rider minewt mini's, both the 100 and 150's. Steady and flash on the bar, steady on the helmet.

soma5

There's a Chinese clone of a Chinese clone? The parallel universes seem to be colliding here.

cyclocommuter

Actually this is not always true. I have 2 x cheapo 220 lumen flashlights (Cree XP-E LED) attached to my bike... these have zoom-able lenses. What I notice is when the light is in "wide" mode or when the lens is closest to the LED, there is a bigger chance that one can be temporarily blinded when one glances at the light. This happens when the person glancing at the light has a direct line of vision to the LED... which is highest when it is at it's wide mode. The more powerful the LED the greater the chances of being dazzled. In some articles I have come across, there is mention that this could even lead to temporary retinal damage. After I myself suffered some minor irritation after testing the lights I decided to still use these but narrow down the focus to more of a spot. I also aimed them lower... I don't want to blind not only motorists but also pedestrians and cyclists even if only temporarily.

If you don't believe me just look at most manuals on LED lights that you may have purchased... almost all of them warn you "not to look directly at the light" which means not directly at the LED source.

cyccommute 

This is true for any light with a parabolic reflector, including automobile lights. The closer you are to the central axis, more intense the light is going to be. It's relatively simple optics. However (and again), our position on the road moves that intense central axis away from motorists. If a motorist is going to be blinded by our lights, it's going to be, for the most part, due to the spillage away from the central axis. That light is more diffuse and less intense.

Additionally, intensity decreases with the square of the distance. A light might be bright at a foot away from the light and/or it might cause damage...not that I think that is likely...but as you get further and further away, the intensity decreases very quickly. At 10 feet away from the light the light is 100 times less intense than at 1 foot. At 100 feet it's 10,000 times less intense. And that's before you add in windshields that are tilted and reflect some portion of the light as well as tinted which decrease the intensity.

You can easily avoid causing pedestrians and other cyclists discomfort by not using MUPs. If someone is a salmon on a bike, they aren't where they are supposed to be so what am I to do?

Burton

I completely agree. As for the claim that "motorists have to deal with many more, much brighter light sources at many different heights that are a lot closer to the driver than bicyclists" - I'd sure like to know what they are.

But opinions are cheap and easy. Just to do a reality check, I parked my bicycle beside a stop sign at an intersection and waited for a few vehicles so I could compare headlight glare issues. So I'll be uploading a photo of an recent model automobile (Toyota?) stopped beside the bicycle with its headlights on. It was taken from the other side of the intersection.


I'm only running a couple 700 lumen headlights on that bike and that's spread using 35 degree reflectors, but they're clearly overpowering the car's headlights. In fact they might overpower the high beams - something I'll have to try a comparison on.


Using a higher powered headlight and a narrower focusing reflector would only make the situation worse. On city streets, oncoming traffic will have to deal with bicycle headlights as close as 15 ft and if bar mounted, then at almost eye level of the average passenger car driver. I'd say liability insurance would be a good idea for anyone that wants do do that on a regular basis.


I should have the photo up within a day or do. It was taken with an iPhone 4 and besides being reduced on size for this site - is untouched.

.................................................................................................... .............................

OK So here's that photo, taken around 4:30 in the afternoon before it was completely dark:

Of course a few people might think that because the bike is on the curb - that the height is causing the issue - which is not the case. But lets go there anyway. The following sequence of shots were taken earlier in the day when I was checking the battery run time. These shots are all taken with the bike on the ground and from 30 feet away:
At 2:30 in the afternoon (those brightest areas are actually sunlight):
At 3:30 in the afternoon as the sun was going down:
At 4:30 just before moving the bike to the intersection:

I did manage to get 4 hours out of a 6.5Ah battery running those two lights together, but I DON'T want them pointed directly at ME!

jputnam

Not surprising -- car low beams are often in the 1,000-1,500 lumen range, and have a sharp cutoff for the upper distribution of light. At eye level, a 700 lumen round beam will easily overpower a 1,500 lumen headlight with a good cutoff.

cyccommute 

Look at position.



You are lined up directly in front of the bicycle lights. This might be a position that a pedestrian could find themselves in but not a motorist (nor another legally riding bicyclist).

Take the same picture lined up in front of the car, especially a car of a more 'normal' vintage...i.e. around 10 years old...and I think you'd find a fair amount of glare from the car's lights too. If the car isn't a car aka as a truck, you'd find even more glare from a the lights when standing directly in front of the lights.

Also the car is angling away from you in the picture. His lights aren't pointed at you because he is turning his car to go around you.

Now let's look at how the picture could be set up to make it more like what an on-coming motorist would experience. First move further away from the source of the light. You aren't all the way across the intersection in the above photo. Ideally, we should see both crosswalks at the intersection in the picture. Then move across so that you are in the position of a motorist approaching that stop sign. Ideally the picture should be taken from the same height as a motorist in a sedan (I'd suggest a lawn chair) and with a normal lens, i.e. no telephoto and no wide angle pictures.

The above would fit into what I have been saying about lights than taking a picture head-on into the light of a bicycle in a position that no motorist would find themselves in if the cyclists is riding in a legal manner.

Burton

Mr Black the only thing you're making very clear once again is that you don't know what you're talking about. If I stated that I was on the other side of the intersection it's because I WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE INTERSECTION.

And an automobile headlight on lowbeam throws a broad area of light that's pretty glare free from any angle if properly installed and aimed. That's what a low beam cutoff does. Of course if you had bothered to look at the ground, you might also have noticed that MY beam was the only one actually providing visible illumination too.

And regardless of if YOU want to accept it or not - that's very representative of what oncoming traffic would have to deal with because the driver is actually closest to oncoming traffic. And after posting those other photos as well taken at an angle and even further away with the same results you still want to argue. Why am I not surprised?

You're the same guy that swears that sugar isn't a carbohydrate even though the packaging on every food product in North America says it is. And you're the same guy that wants to argue that oil and grease are there to prevent oxidation when on fact both are primarily lubricants. Paint, electroplating, anodizing and irridation are specificity to prevent oxidation.

You're a bright guy, too bad you keep insisting on just being an obnoxious argumentative poster. But as long as you keep doing that - I'm really not interested in your opinion.

cyccommute 

No where in your post did you say that you were on the other side of the intersection. Quoting from what you posted: "I parked my bicycle beside a stop sign at an intersection and waited for a few vehicles..." Nothing says you were on the other side of the intersection. Further your picture seems to show the photo was taken from near the cross walk on a t-intersection quite close to the cross walk that the car is crossing. You might have zoomed the picture which is why I suggested taking the picture again with a normal lens view.

Look at your own picture. Right above your bicycle lights are the beams of a car. The lights look just like most every other light I've seen from other cars. The beam pattern is round and a bit glary. In fact from around 100 yards, those lights are almost more noticeable than your lights. But the other nonautomotive lights in the picture have flared quite a bit too. That indicates an extended exposure time and really isn't representative of a momentary exposure to the lights.

Also look at the picture I stole from mechBgon in post #6 or mechBgon's video in post #15. Lots of glare in those photos.

If you are driving your car on the wrong side of the road, your picture would be representative of what a driver might see. But if the driver is on the bicyclists side of the road, you have bigger problems and worrying about blinding the on-coming driver is the least of them.

Your other pictures would be helpful if they were rotated. However, from those photos, you are lining up with the lights centered in the camera. That is hardly a position that motorists are going to be in when you are using your lights. I will grant you that a motorist could be closer to your lights on a left hand turn but not full head-on like your photos show.

If you want to be fair, move of center to an equivalent distance that a motorist might realistically see (roughly 20 feet to the side) and see how bright the lights look.

A whole bunch of nonsense. I have never, ever, said that sugar isn't a carbohydrate. I'm a chemist with 30 years of experience in the conversion of carbohydrates to fuel. I know what a carbohydrate is and isn't.

I have no idea where the oil and grease thing came from. Oil and grease do serve to help prevent oxidation by forming a layer to keeping oxidizing gases from metals. That's why chains come packed in grease and why steel parts are often coated with oil and lubricants during shipping and why you oil your gun barrels. The primary function of oils and grease is to lubricate parts that are moving but they also have secondary function to reduce oxidation of, mostly, steel parts.

I'm hurt. I'm really hurt

cehowardGS

Could somebody please show me a link to the ChinaShines??

Thanks in advance...

10 Wheels

https://www.dealextreme.com/p/xml-t60...x-18650-104287

10 Wheels

https://www.dealextreme.com/p/t6-wate...pack-set-82510

seeker333

This is the same light as the links posted above by 10 Wheels, but it ships from DX's US location, so it'll get to you much sooner.

This light has a 3 mode H-L-strobe operation. I'm not sure how fast the strobe is, it might be 5Hz (too fast IMO). Also the reflector is smooth finish, not OP (orange peel), which tends to produce a poorer beam pattern for bicycling purpose. The battery pack is probably not the best. It might last a week, it might last 6 months. BTW, DX will add 3% to cost if you use PayPal.

https://www.dealextreme.com/p/t6-assa...-set-900182508

This one will most likely work better, for longer. The seller is a good guy. I bought from him a couple times now. It costs twice as much as the DX model linked above:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MagicShine-M...item3f0a524404

He also sells the Gemini Titan, which has a P7 emitter with a little more battery (5200 vs 4400mah). It's a better deal, even with the slightly lower output emitter.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Gemini-Titan...item415ac9f6f9

dynodonn 

I tried a set of flat beam lenses that I got off Ebay, but the flat beam lens was basically worthless in that they reduced the MS emitting power to the point that peds and motorists basically ignored me when compared to the OE lenses, plus the lenses barely lit up the roadway on rainy nights, even on the highest setting.

I now use Euro spot lenses, they're bright enough so that I get the attention I want from peds and motorists, lighting up the roadway on rainy nights, and in diminishing the side light spillage as to not blind oncoming road/sidewalk users as nearly as bad as the original lens.

cehowardGS

As always, thanks much...

This models requires you to have a battery pack right? In other words, the batteries are not in the light casing, but in an external pack?

cehowardGS

And Thank you too..

cyccommute 

I took the liberty of capturing Burton's pictures and rotating them so that we can see them in a more normal perspective.

First, the pictures show that he didn't take them from off to one side. The bike is centered in the photograph. The photos also show that while bright, at a distance that I estimate to be 30 to 40 feet I wouldn't say that the lights could cause any kind of damage to anyone's retina. In other words, not particularly "blinding". As a driver, if I saw them on the other side of the road 20+ feet off the line of my travel, I would notice them but I wouldn't have any more problem with them than I would with a on-coming car's lights.

cyccommute 

Burton said to do a reality check, so I did. I took pictures on the way home from my truck to show what the light from other cars is really like. Here's a truck across a 2 lane intersection that was roughly 30 feet away. He's in a left turn lane as am I and he is slightly up hill from me. It was a Ford pickup and my truck is a later model Chevy Tahoe which sits higher than current models.



Not a lot of cutoff there and this is still not full dark. The light is a least as glary as Burton's picture but from further away.

Here's a sedan across an intersection and, again slightly up hill.



If you look at the lights they don't project as asymmetrical but as a round light source. The car was a late model Toyota. The car in the background's lights are even brighter and up close have more glare than the Toyota



His lights are much brighter than mine as the light you see on the snow comes from his lights and not mine. The car was a Subaru Outback.

Overall, and I've experienced this before, sharp cutoff lights look great when projected against a garage door. Head on, a substantial portion of the light isn't cut-off but is projected upward. That is by design because you want some illumination of overhead signage.

a1penguin

I find that cars with the bluer tinted lights blinding. Perhaps it's an age thing. I hate those blue lights. So perhaps going for less blue cycling lights would be less intrusive to drivers. As you are riding with traffic and on the edge of the road, the driver coming at you is further away than if you were in a car. It should be obvious to a car coming at you that you are on the side of the road and not likely to have a head on collision. Side streets and turns are another matter altogether.

I always commute home at night after 9 pm when traffic is lighter. I find that many cars who are coming at me waiting to make a left hand turn in front of me will notice me and wait a really long time until I pass. I haven't figured out whether it's because my light is bright and they don't quite know how far away I am or if they are just being polite. In most cases, they could easily make the turn long before I approach the intersection. As there are some low level street lights that provide ambient light, they should be able to judge distance.