I ride dark trails and roads with homebrew LED setups that are about 10x brighter than this...however I find the EL530 fine for commuting on well lit streets and short stretches of dark streets.

The beam pattern is a smallish bright spot but the spill is quite good. I have upgraded the LED in mine and get a much bigger spot and more spill.

Cateye have new single shot lights (advertised in bicycling mag but not on the website yet) which look like they have a better beam pattern. If I was in the market I would wait for them.