Originally Posted by
ItsJustMe
For a one piece, I'd go with a Dinotte Quad Red. use one of the lower power modes at night. I use a DesignShine DS500 which is even brighter.
I don't really care what people say, I don't consider anything much less than 200 lumens to be daylight visible.
I see cyclists riding around here with lights on in the daytime, but they're not what I call daylight visible. It's more like "Hey, a cyclist. Checking out the bike....huh, is he running a light? (squints) Yeah, I think there's something flashing there below his seat."
My idea of "daylight visible" is "something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye, what is it? Hm, bright flashing light. Oh, a cyclist."
If you're not noticing the light before the cyclist, it's not bright enough.
You got me thinking, and that's probably a good thing.
I get your point, which, if I understand it, is that it's better for the tail light to be noticed before the cyclist or the bike. I think it's fine if that's your goal, but my approach is different. I work to making myself visible with my behavior more than with my equipment. My lights are a supplement. At night, I expect I am invisible at times, so at the times when that is most likely, I try to stay out of the way of faster vehicles. Where I think I'm reasonably visible, I occupy the middle of the lane to increase that visibility.
These are just different approaches with different pluses and minuses. I have not been hit from behind yet, though I know it might happen one day. My record doesn't prove my method works. We can't ever prove what we have (or do) works. We can only prove that it doesn't.