Originally Posted by
TenSpeedV2
Chinese knock offs are fine for some, but you will not catch me fudging around with those. I depend on my lights and there are so many variables with the knock offs that it just isn't worth it.
I depend on my lights too. So much so that I would never ride with just one, front or back, even if I spent $1000 on them.
I'm not sure what the tradeoff is, because I think I have at least 4 cheap Chinese knockoff lights now, the longest for probably at least 6 years now, and I've never had any trouble with any of them, apart from fraying cords which take a couple of years to be a problem and I doubt any light would be immune to this. A fraying cord is a minor inconvenience IMO.
My first light was an MR16 halogen in a hunk of plumbing parts with a 12V SLA brick zip tied to the rear rack. Truly horrid DIY. I went through offroad HID and several other generations. What you can get now for $30 is brighter than and probably as reliable as anything you could buy 8 or 10 years ago.