Best Light For Biking
 

I have a cheap light for my bike ($15) and I only bought it to be legal on the street. Otherwise, its almost totally useless for illuminating the road or trail while riding.

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

Depends. You've already answered 'on or off-road' question. Now comes run time requirements, mounting options, and how much are you willing to spend.

these are pretty cheap and take a week or two to get here from asia but man are they really really bright, did I mention cheap. of couse you will need a mounting bracket also.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CREE-LED-7W-...item3cc8ba95b2

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bike-Front-H...item3378b2a534

What is your spending limit? There are A LOT of great lights out there. A great light is the NiteRider MiNewt 600 Cordless, depending on where you buy it anywhere from $110 to $150 and it does a very good job of lighting the street up. My light right now is a NiteRider 1500 Race which will set you back about $350 (I got it on sale @ nashbar for $250). Thee NiteRiders are great for the trail because they throw a wide beam pattern so you can see everything around you.

I like NiteRider, but a lot of others here will suggest different brands that are just as good - Dinotte, MagicShine, etc. There is also the option of getting a high-lumen LED flashlight and lashing it to your helmet or bars. I think a great light for you would be that 600 Cordless I mentioned above, I think you can get it at Amazon fairly cheap - -

Here's a great comparison from mtbr, comparing many lights. I used this comparison to choose my current flamethrower. http://reviews.mtbr.com/2012-bike-lights-shootout

Best? Pretty much the Lupine lights. Bear in mind you didn't mention a budget.

Dinotte if you have a budget.

Either way with Lupine or Dinotte on the front, you need a Dinotte 300R taillight for riding at night.

J.

It's hard to beat this one . Cheap, extremely bright and lightweight but the runtime isn't outstanding. You can buy 2 of them and extra batteries and still be ahead of most of the other lights that are available. It's way brighter than the MiNewt for less. At $60, it's almost cheaper than some be seen lights.

I too need a light but I need more of a spot light to light the roads in front of me. I recently bought a light set, for a good price but its more of a "be seen" light, so I was considering getting a flashlight and putting it on my bike, but I saw someone mention putting it on a helmet. My question with that is, wouldnt that be too high to light up the ground? I need a light for about 1-4 feet ahead of me. My budget is really $30 and under, but would consider a max of $50. Would mounting a flashlight be cheaper and better than buying a designated bike light? What would I mount it with?

You don't have to wonder if the lights you strap to the hood of your car have enough charge in their batteries to stay lit for the duration of your drive, do you? Oh yeah, they're always working, getting current from the car's engine.

I'd say to really look into a dynohub setup. If you ride often at twilight or in the dark, and as long as you're going faster than maybe 5 mph (slower than that and they'll strobe), they're worth every penny (and sometimes cheaper than the expensive rechargeable setups, even after including a new wheel). They also help add some visibility during the day.

If I added together all the lights and batteries I've bought over the years, the total would've been about the same as outfitting two bikes with dynohubs and lights. Considering that I have three bikes and one already has a dynohub, I wouldn't need any battery-powered lights at all.

What are you doing, pushing the bike?

This http://www.shiningbeam.com/servlet/t...8-II-R2/Detaillight might work for you. Cheaper versions can be had through ebay, DX, and the like.

As far as mounting, you can use zip ties, innertube/rubber band, hose clamp or go with an 'off the shelf' product like the Zefal Doodad.

(snicker) :)

Depends on what you want to do and how you want to use the lights. For Wolverine Rebel's application, dyno is probably not the best. First the lights aren't as intense as what is needed for off-road especially for downhill. Helmet lights are difficult to rig from a dyno as well. A helmet light is far more useful off-road because of their directionality.

There's also the problem of having to keep the wheel turning for consistent light. Climbing on a mountain bike off-road may or may not be fast enough to keep the wheel turning at the proper rate. And if you have to stop to walk over an obstacle, you might be walking sections of the trail in the dark. It's not the best fit which is why battery systems are so prevalent

^^^ Yeah, true. There are some ridiculously bright dyno lights now, and even though they can come with a "standlight" circuit (stays lit for a little while after the wheel stops turning, so you're still lit up at a stoplight), it points where the bike points instead of where your head's pointed.

Considering that, and the fact that my road bike doesn't have a dynohub, there's one helmet-mounted battery system that I've had for about a year -- a Light & Motion Vis 360. Easy to take on and off, easy to charge, well-balanced, and I'm sure that I'd have to charge it more than once every few months if my commute was longer.

:eek: There are???? Where are they hiding?
Seriously - if someone has come up with anything with an output of over 2,000 lumens I'd be very interested! OK - even 1,500 lumens wouldn't be too bad. :notamused:

I'm just thinking of lights like B&M IQs and Supernovas. If your riding really needs more than that, like 40-mph downhill runs in the dark, maybe you shouldn't be going that fast anyway (or your support crew has additional batteries to get you through the night during your 24-hour race).

Why is that a poster says they want the "best" and pretty much everyone suggests the cheapest?

J.

Cheap and best aren't mutually exclusive. You can pay more and have only one light or you can pay less and have multiples...perhaps 3 or 4... for the same price as the most expensive lights. Which is best: having one light that puts out 2000 lumens for around $400 vs having 3 that put out around 1000 lumens each for $180?

For trail lighting you need better lighting then road riding due to the imperfections that need to be seen. Usually the best way to handle trail lighting is using two lights, one on the bars and one on the helmet for a different lighting angle. Sadly this won't be cheap. Problem with cheap Chinese knockoff lights that seem like a good deal is that they don't put out anywhere near as much lumens as they report. A friend of mine has a 1200 lumen Magicshine and my 480 Lumen Cygolite Mitycross was actually brighter, it threw out a beam further but the MS had a slightly wider beam, overlay the two and the MityCross washed out the MS beam; in addition the Cygolite battery had a longer run time. You get what you pay for with those generic jobs.

I think you could do well with two Cygolite ExpiliOn 410's or if you can swing it two Expilion 500's. The combine cost for two 410's would be about $200 and give you a total of 820 lumens, the 500 would cost you about $280 and get you 1000 lumens. The cool thing about these lights is there is no separate battery to run a wire to, and the battery is rechargeable and replaceable which means you could carry another set of batteries with you if need be. They come with bar and helmet mounts that require no tools. They also use regulated power which gives a flat consistent power output vs the cheap ones that don't do this which will result in a slow decrease in lighting output.

Just another thought.

No personal criticism intended BarracksSi. I agree those would be suitable for anyone just using bicycle paths and cycling in good weather. Unfortunately I have to mix things up with heavy downtown traffic late at night several times a week and need something a lot more conspicious to catch motorists attention. And the effectiveness of any light is severely compromised in heavy rain where wet pavement sucks up lumens like a hungry cat so I currently run two 900 lumen lights with the option to light up another four. The reason I'm still stuck with batteries is that I havent found a generator that will handle that kind of load (thats just the front) and because I'm running a 12V system for effeciency.

Best Light For Biking. i agree it .thank you. http://www.okhealthy.com/image/12.jpg

[h=1]NiteRider MiNewt 350 wall & usb charge well built last under $100 don't mess around with anything else. [/h]

I am quite sure the OP will get a lot of options. But, if the OP wants go on the cheap, the above duo for less than $10 can't be beat. I have two of them, and the mounts. and they give off good light for my night time commute. I have stronger lights, and most of the time I am running the stronger one. One day I was in a hurry, these two had fresh 18650s in them, so I took off my 26650 lights, slapped them on, and o boy. The thrill was that each light/mount combo is under $10 So, two of them, plus one for the helmet, you rae out of $30.

Now, if you pockets are deep, go for one of the battery pack deals.. And always go with TWO up front. You got a back up or you can run them both at one time. Good for trails I think where you need searing light.

Must be a marketing person for MiNewt. Here is a comparison of lights: http://www.modernbike.com/light-comp...singleshotplus

I bought one of these.. us based seller - under 55.00 with battery - helmet and bar mounts - a great deal. The battery is the only weak link.. you will get 3 hours of burn time in high mode. I like this one because it only has 3 modes.. high - low and strobe. easier to cycle though if needed. It is not 1600 lumens but will give you a solid 1000 lumens, plenty bright.

http://www.amazon.com/Cree-Xm-l-1200...s=Cree+Xm-l+T6

Might indeed be the marketing dept for NiteRider lol, however the 350 is not a bad light, especially for those folks that don't have a Swiss bank account on the side. I personally like flamethrowers (I use the NiteRider 1500 Pro) but if you don't have an extra arm or leg to pay for lighting the little 350 is one of many great choices.

Try the rechargeable systems like the one's at REI

http://www.rei.com/category/4500819

Now that this thread got bumped and I reread parts of it --

I'm not so sure that offroad nighttime biking is as prevalent as we're being led to believe, particularly by accessory manufacturers. Some of us ride like that, of course, but not very many overall.

Battery systems are indeed the best fit for slow, technical riding, especially if you can add one to your helmet so you're not stuck with only seeing wherever your front wheel is pointed. I just think that feeding them on a charger gets to be enough of an annoyance to make me prefer dyno systems whenever possible.

The last straw for me came with the AA-powered Dinotte lights that I got a few years ago. Damned bright, front and back, but if I didn't stick the batteries in the charger overnight at least once every two days, especially in cold winter weather, I learned to expect that they'd drop to low-power mode even on my relatively short commute. Going out for a two-hour ride after dark was no longer a spur-of-the-moment thing because I had to either put the batteries in the charger that morning or always have a second set on standby. I'm positive that run times would be less of a problem with the Li-ion systems, but still, my Dinottes started gathering dust the day I got my dynohub-equipped city bike. I really should either sell them off or send them in for an upgrade to a single Li-ion setup.

What is that all about? Do you work for them? Or are you some anal weenie that is excited about your purchase?

:notamused: Got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?

If you look at the pictures on the site I posted there were some lights that did better then the MiNewt for the same cost or less. So I wasn't trying to convey that someone needed to spend a mint for lighting. In fact for road use you don't need more then 500 lumens per light; single track riding is a different story. I have two headlight I use at night, a Phillips Saferide on the bars and a Cygolite Mitycross 480 on the helmet and those two lights are more then what's needed for the road. In fact most of the time I use only the middle brightness setting on the Mitycross and low on the Saferide. The Saferide is a fairly expensive light but the only reason I use is because I won the light, otherwise I would have gone with my Mitycross on the bars and my ExpiliOn 350 on the helmet which was plenty of light...now my wife uses the ExpiliOn as her only light however she doesn't go out at night but does use it on flash mode during the day.

Personally I think someone with budget concerns could get one of the ExpiliOn lights as their main light, then later when they have more money saved get a second ExpiliOn either brighter or the same brightness and add it to their helmet. I would probably put the dimmer one on the helmet. But a single 300 to 350 lumen ExpiliOn on the bars would be plenty of lighting especially in the city with lots of ambient lighting.

You can get a ExpiliOn 600 (lumens) for under $100...barely. Or a 350 for under $85. Anyway see: http://www.amazon.com/CygoLite-Expil...olite+expilion This would make the MiNewt look like a DimWit.