Interesting site. According to their chart showing the relative brightness of the various bulbs, it looks like the smart thing would be to use the whole 3 watts for a halogen headlamp, since the bulb is a third again as bright as a 2.4w, and go with a battery-powered tail lamp. And a regulator to safeguard the little $6 gems.

On principal, I don't like to use batteries if I can help it, and so I'd rather use a dynamo tail light w/ the lower wattage 2.4W lamp. I haven't personally found that there's a whole lot of difference in brightness between a 2.4 and a 3.0W headlamp. In fact my dimmest headlight is a 3.0W B&M Lumotech Oval plus running w/o a taillight off a Shimano hub generator. My 2.4W B&M Lumotech standard plus headlamp running w/ a taillight off a B&M bottle generator is brighter. I half suspect the Shimano hub may not be putting out full spec volts / amps, but I haven't tried to hook it up to a meter to test it yet.

I agree with you about not wanting to use batteries on principle, but I have to admit based on coming up behind other cyclists in traffic, that the battery-operated tail lamps with flashing LEDs are a lot more attention-getting.

Also, I suspect a lot of the variance in brightness from one headlamp to another rests with the quality of the reflector and lens. I don't have a lot of confidence in the headlamps I've seen that use a faceted reflector rather than a Fresnel-type lens.

That's why the old Union generator lamps throw such a nice beam - they've got the Fresnel-style lens.

I generally make up for the lack of a rear blinkie by using pedal reflectors and stategically placing reflective tape on various components such as the pedal cranks. These reflectors move and 'flash' as you ride, and attract attention in much the same way a blinkie does, but use free retro-reflective light and not batteries.

Yeah, the wife's Raleigh has a Union headlamp. Once my NOS Onward light set shows up in a few days, I think I'm going to start a campaign on how much nicer the larger Onward lamp would look on her bike...



I've got rat traps without reflectors, and I'm a bit reluctant to plaster reflector tape on the crank arms. Maybe I'll devise a pattern of tape on the back of my helmet, and roll my head about hypnotically as I ride.

Most rat trap style pedals have mounting holes for pedal reflectors, unless they're the curved type...you can also put reflective tape on the pedals, curved or flat, instead of reflectors...

Yup, they've got holes to mount pedal reflectors. I'll go rummage through my donor bikes.