An upside-down locomotive!

I ride three distinct environments:

1. Fast off-road on trails. In this environment, a flood beam is best on the bike because the bike will be aiming all over the place in response to the terrain. Redundancy is also critical, and a steerable light is valuable, so a helmet-mounted light fills two important roles there. A taillight can be helpful to following riders if it's very, very low-powered and preferably steady-burn. Just something to help them keep track of you if you're getting separated a bit.

2. Urban arterials. In this environment, there's a lot of interference from streetlights and vehicles. More power helps me show up better. Helmet lights help attract attention and are visible over rows of parked cars to people trying to pull onto my street. I don't worry about subtleties like "omg is my headlight going to blind someone, it's not German-approved, blah blah etc," no one's even close to using their full night vision in this scenario and they're not going to be disoriented by even my best lights.

For the urban scenario, out of my arsenal, I'd ideally pick one of my big bar lights (DiNotte 1200+ or NiteRider Pro 1200) and then stick my S-Mini on my helmet. The reality is, I don't want to go to the grocery store and leave $400+ light systems outside, and I don't want to stuff them in my pockets, so I often settle for an S-Mini on the bars because it's easy to pocket and bright enough above the horizon to get me seen against most backgrounds.

Side and rear lighting are also a big deal and I like redundancy and lots of power.


3. Rural highway. In this environment, I like to see a long way forward and prefer something throwy. There's a lot of debris on the 4-lane divided highway shoulder and I need to pick out the big stuff well in advance. Being seen from the front's not such a problem, I'm a light source against a dark background, and anyone close enough to risk left-crossing me in the dark will also see my reflective stuffs. A helmet light can be useful for detecting deer, since their eyes reflect great with a helmet light.

On the pitch-dark highway, I do concern myself with having an uncomfortably-bright light aimed at oncoming traffic. I've tried various tactics over the years, such as manually tipping my primary light downwards to effectively dim it, or turning a couple throwy lights off for the other person, but it gets to be a hassle. This is where a "glare-free" dyno headlight turned out to be handy; as long as the bike's on level-ish ground, the beam's pretty friendly from the front view. However, the light I picked (Supernova E3 Pro asym) doesn't project forward very well for riding at 18-22mph, so I'm going to try a Cyo next.

For rear lighting, I want people to see me well in advance, particularly as I try to cross turnout lanes where people will be diving into the off-ramp at 45mph and aren't really expecting a cyclist. So I use redundant taillights with good power, making sure they're aimed well. Out of my current fleet, the DiNotte 300R combined with the Cygolite Hotshot would be my first pick. If they don't see THAT combo, I just wasn't meant to survive