looking for a light that is bright enough for dark paved trails that i can get somewhere around 5 hrs between charges.

The MagicShine 900 lumen light in low mode goes 8+ hours and puts out > 200 lumens in that mode, for $90. Hard to beat. And you can kick it up as needed.

As long as the area around the trail is dark then I've found that not all that much light is needed since my eyes quickly get dark-adapted. When on the unlit MUP near our house at night I always leave my Planet 1-W Blaze on its lower 0.5 W setting since that's more than adequate. It gives about 15 hours of use on a pair of AA cells at that setting.

OTOH, when on nearby roads I use it on full power or use the flashing setting and another light on steady.

MagicShine sounds like the dogs bollocks

What, you don't like the name? Who the hell cares? It's cheap, decently built and it's an incredible light.

If you want to go ahead and spend $400 instead of $90 to get a light from one of the name brands that puts out less light, when neither of the lights have a name printed on them anyway, you go right ahead. I've got some other junk lying around that I'd like to sell you too.

Dog's Bollocks

In UK slang terms the "dog's bollocks" means the best.

OK. I watch quite a bit of UK TV, but I guess that never connected for me. Maybe if Craig Charles said it I'd have gotten it.

Bollocks in general is kind of the opposite of that. Sorry for misunderstanding.

Since the trail is paved, just have a car follow you with headlights. Or a motorcycle if the trail isn't wide enough for a car

The MagicShine is relatively new. I can't argue for or against it.

About 200L is the minimum lumen rating you need, I've found. The other cheap option is a Dinotte 200L that runs off AA batteries. The batteries will last a little over 2 hours, but you can just carry extras. They also sell a Lithium Ion version for twice as much money, but it comes with a lith-ion battery that gets a lot longer runtime, though if you get that you might as well get the 400L for a couple of bucks more.

I'm curious to see how the MagicShine works out, what kind of reputation it develops after a while.