Thanks for the Dynamo recommendations, guys. If I had the money to invest into my 20-year-old bike, I'd love to have a Dynamo hub, but that's just not going to happen.

I thought the Hotshot was my solution, but now I'm hearing some negative things about it - here and in my Personal Message box. And that Blitzu light looks too narrow for my taste and purpose. Plus it isn't rack mountable.

I know this post isn't all about me, but if you're truly making suggestions to help me out, can you please try to stick to either rechargeable or AAA blinkies that MOUNT TO A REAR RACK?

Thank you all again!

If you look at the link I posted, there are battery equivalents to the dynamo lights that I use and favor. The B&M Top Light Line (awful name) comes in a battery version, and is designed to go on the rack. It basically looks like a big reflector until you turn it on, and the light on top comes on.

*Edit -
Sorry - you may want blinking only, I missed that. But if you wanted to use a steady one, that's a good option.

Yeah, B&M uses horrible model names for its products. I can't remember them or keep them straight.

Here's a suggestion.
https://www.amazon.com/Serfas-Thunde.../dp/B01C8XAU4M

The original thunderbolt is a good light with a wide dispersal of light. At 100 lumens and clear this one sounds promising.

This is another seatpost-mounted light. I am not interested in anything that won't bolt onto my rear rack.

Superflash (and you can get a rack mount)

Planet Bike Tail Light Rack Bracket

The "Superflash turbo" is an almost random pattern. May be better for daytime.

So far, I have yet to see something that makes me want to upgrade my 6 year old Superflashes.

Don't be so sure about not being able to mount the Blitzu light to a rack. It's been my experience that many of the lights that have that use the square mount like the Blitzu will fit in the Planet Bike bracket nycphotography linked to. They all seem to use the same mount size. I have Cateye, Portland Radbot and, of course Planet Bike Superflashes attached to the mount. I have tired others as well. They all seem to fit.

If you are only going to have a single rear light, I would suggest the Cateye and the Radbot I linked to over the Superflash for a rack mounted light as both meet the requirement in most states of a rear facing red reflector. None of the Superflashes really have a "reflector" built in.

I would also suggest that you use a zip tie to secure the tail light to the mount no matter what light you get. I've had many tail lights fly off of the mounts if they aren't secured. I've also collected a fair number of tail lights from other people. The ziptie doesn't have to be tight but it helps to have one.

There are a few good lights that are specifically designed for rack mounting.

Portland Design Works makes a rack mount bracket that sells for $8 that I think will allow any of their lights to be rack mounted. Those are all decent lights, the Danger Zone, the Radbot and the Red Planet.

Cygolite makes a hotshot rack mount bracket.

When I say the Hotshot isn't my favorite, keep in mind that it's still a pretty good light, at one point it was probably the best < $50 taillight. It's just that IMO right now you can do better for the same money. That doesn't mean it won't serve you well.

I kind of like having multiple kinds of lights mounted at once.

Like I said above, I think multiple lights can mount in the same mount. I have a Radbot and a Cateye taillight in a Planet Bike mounts right now. The Cygolite mount doesn't look like it's any different from the Planetbike

OK, I'm fried. There's too much out there to choose from and I'm seriously thinking about just dropping this whole thing, lest I have buyer's remorse later on. Once again, I think this is why sales of everything imaginable are not what they should be.

I think if I'm going to pursue this any further, I need a new approach. Automobile manufacturers are bound by certain standards for how bright a tail light needs to be. They build one into a car and we buy it. And we don't then go out and spend the next year trying to find one that's brighter or has a better flashing pattern. So how can I apply this to my purchase of a rear blinkie for my bike before I slash my wrist?

* How many lumens are ENOUGH (no more/no less) for daytime riding?
* Is a straight flashing mode sufficient, or do any of the other fancy blinking patterns really make a big difference in the daytime?

How have other people here handled this ridiculous decision-making process? I don't want two, three, or four lights and I don't want to have to replace the one I buy for many years. I want to pick one that works WELL ENOUGH and be done with it!

This, I don't know how many lumens it has (says 400 cd) is enough to be SEEN. Even decent for lighting the road, but there are better options. Link:
HL-EL010 | CATEYE

In my experience, those who don't see you with that light, won't see you with a much brighter headlight.

Also, for night riding, steady beam is better than a flashing one.
For daytime - I've only ever used blinking mode for daytime riding, so can't make a comparison. It does help somewhat. Not sure whether straight beam is better, or worse for daytime use.

You are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. In other words, you are way over thinking this. Any light will be fine for daytime riding (no light is fine for daytime riding as well). Just pick one. Don't worry about blink patterns nor about lumens nor about whether the light is turbo or not. Honestly, it would be hard to go wrong with a Planet Bike Super Flash. It's relatively bright, flashes or not depending on how many times you push the button, can be fit to a rack and doesn't cost a lot of money. It uses AAA batteries that can be rechargeable or not.

I have several of them. There's not a thing wrong with anyone of them. Two AAA batteries last me a year or more of riding...even on steady and even when stored in garage at subfreezing temperatures...but I use them only at night from August to April.

Just buy one an use it. If you don't like it, buy something different later.

Totally right. OP, just buy one of the highly rated ones that cost about $40. You'll like all of them. They're all bright and well made at that price point.

Rivendell has some good ones, including a battery version of the dynamo-style one that I like. Pick either one of those brands and you'll like it. Or a super flash with a rack mount. Or a cygolite with a rack mount. Again, whichever one you buy, you'll look at it and say, wow - that's bright!

Just. Buy. Something. Good grief, there really are no bad lights out there these days, if you're spending more than $10 and getting ANY light named in this thread.

I don't think there is a perfect light. I have probably at least a dozen lights, and I wouldn't want to have multiples of any of them. I mount different ones depending on the season, time of day, position on the bike, etc.

Start out with ANY light in this thread. Go from there.

The first bike I bought wasn't great either but I rode it most days for 10 years. The best way to find out what you really want is to buy ANYTHING, use it for a while, then move on from there. It's ridiculous to think that someone without experience is going to make the perfect buying decision. But if you make no decision, you'll never have the opportunity to improve it.

And remember, you will never know if it enhances your safety. You will only know if it doesn't.

For what it's worth, I usually use a headlight and a tail light in traffic in the day. Cuz ya nevah know.

After seeing the incredible amounts of analysis paralysis the OP goes through on this site with making minor decisions I wonder what it's like for him to make a major decision like buying a house.
Or is this thread a thinly veiled ploy to get some of the members here to send him some of our old lights to force the issue on him and eliminate the whole purchasing process?

I always thought this was the guy who bought a $5 tail light. Is that thing still running??

>>>After seeing the incredible amounts of analysis paralysis the OP goes through on this site with making minor decisions I wonder what it's like for him to make a major decision like buying a house. Or is this thread a thinly veiled ploy to get some of the members here to send him some of our old lights to force the issue on him and eliminate the whole purchasing process?<<<<<

I like that idea. What've you got for me?

Funny comment about the house, but it misses my point. The frustration for me comes from there being so many choices out there and so many of these choices being virtually identical. Why do two dozen manufacturers have to put out the same exact Chinese light under two dozen different names? It was nowhere NEAR this difficult to make "minor decisions" in the past because there was so much less information and so many fewer choices out there.

Anyway, read my final comment below before you walk away from this thread.

>>>>I always thought this was the guy who bought a $5 tail light. Is that thing still running?? <<<<

It's a 32-LED flashlight that I used as a headlight, not a tail light. I replaced it with my old 10W NiteRider lamp for about a week after I spent $30 rebuilding the old battery pack. It's not that the $5 Harbor Freight light had fried, but because I had a sentimental moment and wanted to revive my first headlight. I also like the mounting system on the NiteRider better than the plumbing clamp I used on my Harbor Freight light. Anyway, after one or two recharges, the new battery pack died and I am back to my $5 HF flashlight, which has now served me spectacularly well for, what, two years???? Thanks for asking.

FINAL COMMENTS: So I've ordered the Cygolite HotShot 150 and a rack mount kit from Amazon. Today, I had an hour to kill, so I decided to go into REI to see if they had a 150 I could check out in person. They only had the HotShot 50, but it turns out they had just about every other blinkie you guys (and the folks over at the Electronics & Lighting Forum) recommended and they were all charged and available to test. As many of you said, every single one of them was absolutely sufficient for my purpose. In fact, the HotShot 50 seemed to be almost TOO BRIGHT. Now I wonder if I made a mistake with the 150. I probably could have spent $20 less and solved my problem without all the agida.

Anyway, hashing it out on this forum kept me busy on all those chilly, dark autumn nights when I was beginning to get depressed about cycle-commuting season coming to an end, so thanks for all the input - and especially the jabs and pokes that finally got me to make a decision and move on.

End?

No, my friend, this is just the beginning!

Winter Cycling - Bike Forums

STOP right there!

You won't regret getting the Hotshot Pro 150 over the lesser versions. In direct sunlight the extra lumens absolutely make a difference (I own one.)

End? Youi're just begining the next phase when questions about use of the light comes up!

OK, you were funny before, but now you're being obnoxious.

It wasn't meant to be. Instead that comment reflects years of reading posts from people who spent time and effort into making just the right choice of whatever they were buying and then wanted more advice as to why their purchase wasn't working like they hoped it would in the cold/wet/dark/snow etc.... or to brag about how well their purchase worked.

I was driving to work at 7am in almost total darkness today when a gigantic white light, brighter than all the car headlights in the vicinity, appeared on the horizon. It was a single, solid beam and, as I had never seen a bicycle light so bright, I assumed it was a motorcycle. As it got closer, I realized it was indeed a bicycle, and I became fixated on it.

For the next few minutes, I struggled to stay within range of this light so that I might be able to ask the rider what it was. I stopped at a red light and waited for him to catch up, but he ended up zig-zagging around me and blowing through the light, which immediately made me hate him, but that's beside the point.

Eventually, we came to a major intersection with another red light. He came up on my left in the bike lane and looked like he was going to try to blow through this light, too, but I stuck my arm out to wave him down. He jammed on his brakes and I had to decide in that split second whether I wanted to blast him for being such a d-ck rider or ask him what headlight he was using. I decided that my words were not going to change his personality, so I asked about the light. He said it was a "NiteRider 700." I commented that it was brighter than all the car headlights on the road. He replied that it wasn't. Maybe he thought I was criticizing him. Then I asked about his rear blinkie, which looked like the Cygolite I just ordered. He told me it was a Bontrager something or other. The blinkie wasn't quite as impressive as the headlight. Then he blew the light and rode away, getting honked by a car or two as he crossed this very busy road.

So I think I want to invest in a NiteRider 700 (or whatever it's REALLY called) next.