Originally Posted by
Anthony2
And if I can thread-crap by own thread for a second: do you guys usually angle the light downwards? There aren't many riders or passers-by on my path (at night, I mean), but on the off chance that some are still around, I really don't want to blind or bother them. What do you guys do to circumvent this issue?
Um...
There's sort of 3 categories of lights.
1. Shaped beam lights with a sharp cutoff, like a car's low beam headlight, specifically designed to keep the light out of oncoming people's eyes.
2. Medium power bikes lights with a relatively narrow beam but no cutoff. The most common kind of light.
3. Mountain biking specific bike lights that are specifically designed to have a wide beam, for wooded trails where everyone is going the same direction. These are are pretty much impossible to keep from hitting people in the face with the beam, as the beam is specifically designed to light up around corners, trees, branches, uphill, downhill as much as possible - the beam shape is designed in such a way as to hit oncoming traffic right in the face.
So...
Originally Posted by
Anthony2
The one I just bought is 1800 lumens as well (Niterider Pro), but judging by the pictures I've seen online, I really like how it spreads the light out (in low, medium and high settings), so I think I'd rather not get something else and just use that alone.
The Nightrider Pro 1800 is in category
#3 . It's specifically designed to be a mountainbiking light with a wide beam. These lights are meant to light up where you're going when you're going uphill, around a corner, and in a second you'll be going downhill straight. The design is specifically done to light up everywhere.
Only thing I could suggest is turning the light output down if you see someone else on the trail.
I have a Seca 1400 that's similar - meant for mountain biking, extremely wide beam, very nice even light output. Unfortunately using it on a trail resulted in several other trail users being extremely upset, a few of them yelled at me, most of them just cleared completely off the trail and I felt kinda bad (the trail I was on is frequented pretty heavily at night). I don't use it on trails any more, just for mountain biking where there's no oncoming traffic.
My
#1 combination of lights to ride with is the Seca 1400 (wide beam) and Seca 900 (narrower punchier beam). But there's no way to ride anywhere with oncoming traffic with those without blinding other people. I use a Phillips Saferide for trail riding, because it's in category
#1 with a cutoff. If I was only going to come across 1 person all night I knew for sure...I'd be torn. Well, I might still ride with the Phillps because on low my night vision outside the beam is ok. But they're both fun lights.