... as if anyone needs convincing here...

For my usual commute, I'm riding in the dark anywhere from 30 minutes to two and a half hours depending on the time of year and the weather. I bought the DiNotte because it could handle three hours at full brightness or in blinking mode.

I went on my first 200k brevet yesterday. We shoved off at 3:30 AM and there was a threat of fog and rain, so I was a bit worried about lighting. Since I wasn't going to be hammering it much, I ran the 200L in low mode and that was ample to light my path in the wee hours. I cranked it up to high a few times on downhill sections where speeds approached 25 MPH or faster while coasting. Then turned it back to low.

With the light rain and fog dominating most of the day, I decided I would just leave the DiNotte on for the whole ride. On low with about 10 minutes of high beams, the light lasted the entirety of my 12 and a half hour ride without dropping into warning mode (red power button), much less limp-home mode (fast strobing that's really dim).

I'm running Energizer 2650 mAH NiMH Rechargeables in it, and they've been really good to me, squeezing out almost 4 hours at full brightness, although they drop into warning (but not limp home) mode after a while.

As far as the rest of the ride went, I can see why some of my bike commuting friends are into Centuries, Brevets, and bicycle touring. But damn, this was a butt-kicker of a ride. Perhaps I should have gotten my road bike fixed up instead of riding my modified late-90s mountain bike?

Ride report and pics for anyone who's interested:
http://kc-bike.blogspot.com/2008/06/...rt-part-1.html

Mostly, I ws just impressed with how long really good LED lighting lasts. The DiNotte's light output on low is about what I was getting from my old Blackburn Quadrant, but with a lot better light pattern on the road.