I don't care if you flip me off or swear at me. I am not a tough guy but have worked and commuted to the local prison for a long time. But YOU SAW ME right? So how is that a problem? My friends at work have told me I make a spectacle of myself and again, YOU SAW ME! My lights, safety vest and other reflective material seem to keep me seen on the road. I have had helmet lights, monkeylights, and bike lights. Right now I avoid helmet lights. Do what works for you. Be Well, Bluesfrog

I had a Breezer commuter with dynamo-driven B&M lights with a proper cutoff, and loved it. I wish the American makers would adopt this standard.

My rechargable helmet-mounted L&M Vis Pro runs 600 lumens at full power, with a front white pulsing mode at 150 lumens. The rear red pulses at 25 lumens. I run the pulse mode in the city at all hours and it is plenty bright day and night. When I'm on the bikeway at night I run steady at 150 or 300 lumens (depending on conditions) to avoid blinding other bikers, and turn my head away when passing

The boys on this thread who are bragging 1000 lumens must be riding on the Autostrada or remote roads - I sure hope I don't come across them.

Maybe a blinking red light would be more visible. 500 lumen white light is rather bright one. Not to mention whether it cost more, but it might be bigger/heavier to make sure a big battery for long enough runtime, as well as the heat sink. Put it on helmet seems not good.

The Outbound Lighting Road Edition is designed and manufactured in the USA. https://www.outboundlighting.com/pro...-road-edition/
By far the best of the many lights I own.

Spendy, but that looks like a great cut-off light! The run-times at lower output look absurdly long, I like that.

I didn't read all the posts, I got through the first two and started choking on the words so I stopped going any further.

Look ideally you should have two headlights, one rated for about 1,100 to 1,200 lumens that you will use in a lower mode of around 700 lumens, this light will be on steady. The reason for the more lumens comes a bigger battery which means on the middle setting it will run longer then getting a 700 lumen light and running it on high. Also 700 lumens is plenty bright for the street considering that cars only have 700 lumen headlights on dim and yet they go faster than a bike does without any problems over riding their lights, so if their not going over ride their 700 lumen light neither will you, so 700 is more than enough, then on really dark perhaps rainy nights you can turn it on high if needed; I rarely go off my mid level mode into high with my main light. Currently I think the best light for the money is the Ravemen PR1200 which puts out 1,200 lumens on high but again not usually necessary to run it that high. The PR1200 is a dual beam (one spot one diffused or wide beam) with automotive designed cut off beam so more of the lights energy is on the road and not wasting some on the trees. There are cheaper generic lights on Amazon for under $40 if money is tight, but with those the Chinese companies that make them way over rate their lumens and their battery life, also Chinese batteries don't last as long in cycles as the name brand light batteries will, so you are giving up quality but if money is tight these will work for at least a couple of years so you can save up money to buy a better light.

The second headlight needs to be smaller at around 400 lumens, this light will attach to your helmet and put on strobe mode, the strobe mode will catch the attention of a motorist pretty quickly; also since it's on your helmet you can aim the light at car windows who are setting at intersections etc to get their attention that you're there, and you can point it at street signs if needed. This light needs to be very small so it doesn't weigh your head down very much, I happen to like the Lezyne Hecto Drive 400XL, it puts out 400 lumens and its small and light weight, but Lezyne isn't offering that one any more instead they make the Hecto Drive 500XL, but I think they reclassified the Hecto 400XL as the Mini Drive 400XL, on daylight flash mode it will run about 7 hours vs 5 hours for the Hecto 500XL. These lights are very well made for the money, the Mini is only $30 vs $40 for the Hecto, I would go with the Mini, it works very good for me.

I use a flashing forward-facing light only during daylight and at dusk/dawn. When it is fully dark, I always go with a continuous beam.

If part of your ride is through a park trail at night you'll need about 250 lumen wide beam.

My peeve with modern electrics is that all the controls is with one button. On the road, I forget how many times I have to push to get the setting I want. Sometimes I don't even find it as the ambient light sensor automatically overrides what I want.

All I really need are:
on/off
low (for urban neighbourhood)
low flashing
high wide beam (for unlit park trails)