Originally Posted by
willtsmith_nwi
I agree, For be seen ... maybe. For seeing things, bike lights have much wider beam shapes that produce WAY more light that an albiet very high quality/cheap LED flashlight. And the runtimes are greatly extended by rechargeable Li-On battery packs.
There are always the Magicshine lights. You will NOT get the lumens claimed on the box, but it will be significantly better than a flashlight plus ... you will probably get a headband mount to go along with. And for me, headlamps are SOOOO much better than flashlights for anything requiring that I actually use my hands.
BTW, I don't use Magicshine lights. I have Cygolites (4th year in operation, still going strong). Magicshine lights are just the best budget lights out there.
There's truth to a lot of what you said, but...
Let's pretend that I need a front light and my budget is really tight- a max of $50. Don't want the hassle of a external pack or wiring, as I'm a commuter who doesn't have the most secure parking and has to remove anything that I expect to use again. So what would be my options? Oh, yeah, forgot to add I'm night blind...
I'll tell what my choices were, as the above scenario played out earlier this year. I could either go with any number of the bike specific lights that ran off of AA or AAA for the money, which research indicated that anything I could afford would be too weak to be even close enough to 'see by' for me OR I could take a chance and get a flashlight that runs a 1x18650 format. I ended up with a flashlight rated at 510 lumens (claimed, no way to verify, but can attest that it is bright), 2 protected 18650 cells, a charger, and a mount for roughly $45.
As far as MS lights being better than flashlights, well, that's not entirely true. It depends on what you are comparing to. If comparing a MS to a flashlight with a XP-G emitter, sure the MS is gonna win the output category. However, the MS against a XM-L T6 or better yet a U2, then the difference in brightness is a coin toss. The MS wins the run time, but the flashlight wins the portability off the bike.