You're the dood with the smashing behind on the bike right? I think you're the guy with the bright wide taillight. Anyways, CREE LED's and Seoul LED's are already in fighting competition with HID's right now in power. Current CREE XRE LEDs are 80lm @ 350mAh (lowest power setting and as bright as the claimed 80lm for the Ultra 3W Dinotte on high) and 176lm @ 1000mAh. These LED's are aquireable at as low as $7 USD/LED right now. As always the battery will always eat you 50% of the cost but still you can have a kick butt light for ~$100 USD that puts out more light then the 500L. 176lm x 4 LEDs = 704lm (3LED = 528lm). The Seoul LED's are slightly brighter then the CREE XRE's but Seoul has forecasted plans by Q4/07 to have a 216lm LED @ 1000mAh (if I remember the power specs) by the end of the year. So that would put out about ~95-100lm @ 350mAh roughly on the lowest power setting. Get ready to wash out that Beamers (BMW) lights at the next traffic lights.

Yah I agree $500 is too rich for my blood. One of my old highschool mates is into LED's and just bought some K2's and a CREE for his motorbike but I plan on working with him for a bike version. He's a programmer so the LED thing is just on the side but I really hope to have the lights in prototype testing in a couple months.

This is the best looking DIY. Very nice looking and low profile as well for the helmet and bar mount. http://myfwyc.org/bikeled/DIY_LED_Bi...ing_Guide.html