I think that's right.

The lumens wars are just about over and I think that point is about 3600 lumens or so. After that, we're going to start the features war and the lens war. I just saw somewhere a light that automatically adjusts it's brightness (it's a 3600 lumen light, I think), wireless remotes, lens arrangements as you posted, better batteries and better battery mounts, etc... The price will also drop since it's driven by led and battery prices dropping. Eventually, when it gets to to the $200 price point, that's what pretty much serious riders will buy.

I've been riding with lights since the late '80s and it's always been about more lumens. But when I can get a set of lights that puts out essentially what a set of car headlights do on high beam, then that whole issue is dead. You don't need more than that on a bike unless you are going over 70mph or something insane.

When I ride now, I'm using a wilma at 1500 lumens on the bars and a piko 750 lumens on the helmet (i.e. 2250 lumens). When the two beams coincide, it's similar to the beam in your photo, but the lumen density is lower. My plan is to either upgrade the Piko to the new 900 lumen version when available or to put the 1500 lumen Wilma on the helmet and the new 2400 lumen Wilma on the bars. That ought to give a pattern and light density that is probably better than what you show in that image. I do like having a helmet light to look into corners and to make sure that cars see me on cross streets.

J.

Your guess is wrong. My last bike was a 1986 Honda xl600r dual sport with the anemic rectangular headlight. Other bikes I used to ride included a 1980ish Honda XL 250 dual sport, a 1976 Honda CB550 street bike, Honda xl 100 dual sport, among others. My first bike was a Honda z50 that I was given at age 7. As most of my bikes were dual sports, I did do trail riding, sometimes at night. I wasn't racing, so speed wasn't my goal. I also lived out in the country where it actually gets dark.

Except for the 50cc, all had adequate lighting. Not the best, but adequate. The XL600 actually had a H4 bulb, all the others were anemic incandescent. You can't make be believe that they had far more sophisticated optics than cars at the time. Better, but not more sophisticated. I even put 7" Cibie european market lights in my old Volvo 142 because they are better than crappy sealed beams. For the longest time, the Europeans had better optics.

I'd say that nowadays cars and motorcycles have much better lights, but for decades they got by just fine with their 60/55w incandescents. You cannot dispute that.

Would I have liked to have more lighting? Probably, but there are some laws regarding accessory lighting on the streets.

Maybe you need to get your eyes checked

LOL Sorry - you just confirmed my assumptions. You might be familiar with motorcycles but you obviously aren't familiar with high end motorcycle lighting. German lighting for any given year was head and shoulders above anything coming out of Japan. One of the reasons I coughed up the extra money for BMW's at the time. While Japan got caught up in the hoursepower competition, BMW was producing products that would perform in the real world. Their 3year unlimited milage warranty vs everyone elses 12 month 12,000 kilometers should have been a hint at the time.

And my eyes are just fine. Definately good enough to tell that the guys that were riding Susies and Yamahas and Hondas had some pretty marginal lighting compared to me - even though we were all using the same bulbs. The laws regarding automotive lighting restrict the maxium wa
ttage, the maximum number of lights that can be run, and beam pattern requirements. There's no restriction on building a more effecient reflector/lens assembly. The only obstacle there is cost and identifying a client base that thinks its worth paying for.

I'm pretty sure my father's 1950something BMW motorcycle with single headlight did not have superior lighting than the Honda's I've ridden.

I think you're missing my argument. And what does the warranty have anything to do with it?

Times change, thats good. Tech gets better, that's good. It isn't getting any darker at night now than in the 1950's and before that. Are headlights improving, you bet. Do you have to share the streets with other road users, yes. Is being considerate part of being a good road user? It should be.

I'm a tolerant sort, and I don't have to see your oncoming headlight since I'm not in Quebec, but we have rednecks on the road here who like to put illegal driving and off road lights on their trucks. Enforcement is lackluster. It can be annoying and dangerous to other road users. You're on a bicycle and feel the need for crazy bright lighting, I get that. But you are an exception.

How often do you get the opportunity to criticize other road users who use blindly bright lighting? Should I turn around and chase you down to tell you that your lights are way too bright? Impractical and unwise. Just because you get complements and little criticism doesn't mean that their aren't other road users that curse your extreme lighting. Of course they did see you, so your mission is accomplished. If you are using your lights off road, fine by me.

Do you have a dimmed beam in your setup for opposing traffic?

It is kind of like the argument that when I wear this bell, I'm keeping away tigers. How do I know? Because I've never seen one.

and we're talking about putting an old motorcycle headlight on a bike now?

J.

I hear that same argument about "bicycles with bright lights".. sheesh, do you all know what the alternative is????

First of all, a bicycle is only going to be in view for a couple seconds if that long. Bicycles have the life-long-problem of cagers "oh, I didn't see you"..I noticed this when I started running strong lights up front, I get 95% more respect from the cagers. Not 10, 30, or even 50 I said 95% more respect In addition, I have my lights aimed at about 25 to 30 feet out in front of me, not at eye level of cars.

I run two 26650 lights up front, one on my helmet, and two to three red blinkys in the rear. I wish I could show everyone how cars wait for me, and give me my rightaway when I am running those lights. Another point, I am not on the bike trails or MUPs, which IMO, wouldn't require strong lighting. I am dealing with rush hour balls-out-knock-down-dragout-traffic, that I have to try to merge in at 50 mph. .Oh yeah, try that with some weak lights, and see what it gets you. I get passed at 40mph all day. My lights up front are so bright, at night they can see me coming up from the rear. My lights put out a strong beam/flood/foodprint. That footprint can be seen big time from the rear too..

IMO, it is all about where you ride and the condtions that dictates the kind of bicycle lights. One last point, coming this Sept 22, they got a memorial ride in Prince Georges County, in Maryland. The ride is in memorial to triathelte, and a political canidate, that was training in the wee hours of the morning for a tri. She was hit, and the person that hit them dragged the bike three or four miles to that driver's home. Not saying that if that was me, I wouldn't have got hit also, but I can say, my chances would have way, way better than this poor soul. Even if the driver was talking on the phone, and looking the other way, the brightness of my lights would have drawn some attention. That is a big, big plus for bikers that ride at night and near dark conditions.
Am I worrying about my lights being too bright??? No need for an answer...

Bicycle Paper .. [seattlepub.com] V41#6, August issue has a column on equipment.
that issue mentions lights,
and consider: too much light for you to see anything
because the other guy went max lumens light saber arms race,
and is turning the MUP from night into day.. blinding the other driver is not a good thing.

so keep those super-torches on the single tracks in the woods,
and use 'the golden rule' in populated areas , and don't blind your neighbors,
since, blind, they may run over you.

Exactly right.

As long as you have lights that have no more lumens that two car headlights, there should not be an issue. Yet, we really are now just approaching that point so all of this "too bright" stuff is just really (IMO) silly. Do be careful and aim your lights properly. As for the lumens don't worry about it until you hit about 3000.

J.

I think I was quite specific in saying 'for any given year'. If you think that means comparing a lighting system from the 50's to a lighting system from the seventies I can't help you.

For a tolerant kinda guy you're making a lot of assumptions. It takes a lot more lumens to light a wide area than it does to light a small area. That doesn't make what I'm using 'crazy bright'. In fact you'd run into other cyclists using other lighting and find it much more 'blinding'. It really depends on where and how the beam is aimed.

And since we're mixing automotive lighting into this conversation -HID headlights have an output of 3,200 lumens compared to 1,000 to 1,200 lumens in low-beam halogen lights. And those come standard equipment on a number of cars (again, mostly European), so don't assume that just because the number of lumens surprises you that it must be illegal or offroad equipment.


Mmmmmmmm ...... so you wanna pass yourself off as mister reasonable, and still wanna call my lighting 'extreme'. No - there's no dimming feature in these lights, and there's no dimming feature in automotive headlights either. There's a low beam with a cutoff and a selectable high beam - same as an automobile.

Enjoy wearing your bell - I think most of your tigers are in your head.

My tolerant bit is on an individual level. If you feel the need for extreme lighting (as in you [Burton] are an outlier, which you admit to) in your riding, fine. The market currently doesn't cater to you, so you made your own. Fine, I get that. You're in Quebec so I won't be crossing paths with you. Therefore your specific lighting is a non-issue to me. I'm not using outlier as any sort of insult, if a majority felt the way you do, there would be lighting on the market that catered to your needs. There are some HID bicycle lights on the market intended for off road use, they might meet your requirements.

Put your system on the market. See how many you sell.

Around here, there are a lot of cyclists who ride with no lights. Personally I think it is an accident waiting to happen. It is illegal, but because there is apparently no rash of accidents, enforcement is slim to none.

Is it darker now than in the past?

Yes, the more we progress into the future of man, the darker it becomes.

HID's on bicycles and motorcycles have proven to be finiky and unreiable. A version of what I am using is available without beam cutoffs and has already proven to be both effective and reliable in MX racing. That version is closer to 6,000 raw lumens.

Currently what I am using (with beam cut-offs) has been developed as a proof of concept for a manufacturer of electric bicycles here in Quebec. And at this point it being seriously considered as either standard equipment or as an optional add-on. So I have very little interest in trying to marketing it to the majority of general cyclists that seem to think that anything that costs more than $9.99 is too expensive. I enjoy the development end of things.

HID systems during there time were very bright and I never had an issue with the systems at the time.. LED's have just surpassed them in terms of output (lumens) and overall burn time.. LED's are also much more reliable and there are so many choices for decent lighting systems that will not break the bank.. For years the name brand vendors have gotten use to charging 300.00+ for there high end systems..

LED's have provided an opportunity to buy at 1/3 the price and still be safe on the road.

Thinking about this thread and general lighting issues, I am coming to the conclusion that for traffic use, 600 to maybe 1000 real lumens is an appropriate (perhaps even a bit high, especially at 1000) limit for symmetrical beam lighting. The actual limit is dependent on beam angle and aiming of the lights, properly expressed as lux above horizon or similar.

If, on the other hand, you run a properly shaped beam, feel free to generate and and emit just about as many properly placed lumens as strikes your fancy. Last I checked, excess here is still prohibitively expensive and heavy for bicycle use, though at some point a line may need to be drawn.

Tor

Properly shaped beam is correct, most cycling lights don't have that. At least not until Phillips Saferide light came out, they shaped their beam to be flat and similar to a motorcycle beam pattern, along with a larger lens instead of those small pinhead light lens. I rode with both my Cygolite Mitycross 480 and the Phillips with a friend watching me come towards him, and he said he noticed the Phillips more then the other because the light looked bigger.

Correction on my post. I stated I merge into traffic at 50mph. Ha, I meant to say, I have to merge into TRAFFIC that is DOING 50mph. I have to cut in, get to the side of lane(no shoulder), and her comes mr and mrs cager doing 50mph +, and they don't give me my three feet either!!

My 26650 lights are rated at 1600 lums, but you know how they put yeast in those flashlights!! No matter, I would say they are giving off an honest 1000+lums each. Cagers catch up to me and ask " what are you running? Wow".. Haven't got a complaint yet. But, it boggles the mind when I come tooling along at about 15 mph, and a car is gettting ready to make a left turn in front of me, abotu a half block away! They wait!!

Plus, any responsible rider running strong lights, IMO, are responsible enough to have the aimed correctly..

Safe riding to you..

The Phillips light Rekmeyata mentions is exactly the primary light I have. For all that it is nominally about half the lumen count of my old 12 degree beam 10W HID light, it produces equal or better road illumination. It seems a little over bright in the foreground, but from my reading it's better than anything else out there. After installing a 5V regulator from a car USB adaptor the runtime issues are solved, making it a fine primary light. While I wouldn't object to it being brighter, more useful would be to just add some more light to the higher portion of the beam on the road. Of course, after addressing this, adding more overall light would be just fine with me.

Tor

This makes sense.

If you want some good reading on this, check out Peter White's site:

https://www.peterwhitecycles.com/lightingsystems.htm

In Germany, they have pretty strict standards, so that's where a lot of good products come from.

Lupine Betty 6 (2600 Lumens) on Bar and Lupine Pico (900 Lumens) on Helmet and it seems to work out very well for me on the bike trail i ride every single morning at about 0430am...Just incredible lights (with true Lumens).. not over inflated like most of the Chinese Knock Off stuff...

agreed the lupine lights are best in class and if you can afford them there is nothing better on the road.. Most people don't have 800 to 1200.00 to drop on a lighting system.

Well yes they are not cheap at all.. But gosh are they sweet.. I was heading onto the bike trail early Sunday about 0445am and there was these 3 kids walking on the trail ( I was wondering what they were up to on a sunday morning about 445am) and boy did they get blasted.. One of htem yells..Those lights "Are INSANE"...

I call it the close encounters effect.. If the person your riding up believes that they are about to be abducted by aliens - then yes your lights are bright enough.

How do you like the pico, does it seem heavy, I like how it mounts and is so self contained.

The OP said:

"What is the best light for riding ? I would like to use it for night trail riding as well."

The answer to that question is Lupine. We'd have to qualify that somehow if we were to consider cost. Lupine is expensive, but man, are they nice.

J.

'Don't have' or 'don't want to spend'?
I've always found it intriguing what people DO find the money to pay for ....... beer ....... cigarettes ....... lottery tickets ...... iPhones ...... 60in televisions .... swimming pools. But apparently in spite of that ( or because of it) too many kids in North America go to bed hungry. And the average car in North America has 200 hp and is used only for commuting or grocery shopping. 200 horses to lug one person to the office or to pick up bread, milk and cigarettes but driving with a decent light at night isn't all that important because its just .... a bicycle.

I don't take people too seriously.