Standard care headlights are around 1300 lumens. So two headlights puts out 2600 lumens. When the lights are on hi beams, it's considerably more. I think that any bike putting out that much is not too bright anymore than it would be too bright for a car.

What works really well for me riding on winding and hilly country roads is a Lupine Wilma that can go to a max of about 2400 lumens on the bars and a Lupine Piko at 1200 lumens on my helmet. I set the Wilma for about 1500 lumens and then go to full bright for fast descents. I'll even go lower (about 1000 lumens) for long slow climbs. The Wilma has a wider beam than the Piko so I can use that to add to the light in front or to look into a corner as I approach it. That means I'm putting out 2700 lumens or just about what a set of car headlights do.

Properly aimed, none of these are too bright or even brighter than what a car would do. The light puts out a cone with the apex at the light. If you aim the cone down, it's bisected by the road as a plane. If you aim it down a degree more than half the spread at the apex, you won't be wasting lumens. All of them will eventually hit the road.

The Wilma has a 26 degree beam so aiming it down at around 13 degrees (a very slight downward angle) puts little the light in the trees (there is some side spill and reflection off the road, of course) but puts a nice long and gradually wider lighted area on the pavement and primarily in my lane. There is a nice spill of light from the handlebars forward that is just about perfect. I'd say it's very similar to what a car would do with it's headlights. I have the Piko aimed so that when I'm riding head up normally, it will extend out a bit farther than the Wilma. As for batteries, Lupine has a lot of choices for just about any runtime needed. With my 6Ah battery, I get pretty close to 3 hours out of one full charge on the Wilma.

The other advantage to the headlamp is I can more easily see wildlife on the side of the road. I can look at the ditches and the edge of the woods. It's prevented me from having a collision with multiple deer and many raccoons. Both of us, appreciate that.

Unfortunately, here in Minnesota, I can't really use the headlight as much as I would like to until after we get a hard freeze because there are just too many bugs that key in on the headlight. But it's easy to turn on and off so that is not much of a problem.

J.