I've been looking at some of the prices for bike lights. Hundreds, even over $1000. Why are people willing to pay so much for a glorified flashlight?

A tandem set of Zefal Deluxe lights seemingly would give me all the light I'd ever need.

How important is it to be able to light up a stadium with a bike light?

We have a dedicated forum for all electronic stuff, including lights, so I'm moving this thread there (from General Cycling).

Mod hat off now, many people use "normal" flashlights as bike lights. You can buy a cheap flashlight mount for the handlebars from various sources if needed. Bike specific lights are designed for that use, they may have more functionality, shaped beam, big battery that fits bottle holder (with long enough wiring), better protection from the elements, better mounts, adjustability etc. Whether or not you are willing to pay more for any of that is, of course, up to you.

Usually the first question when considering bike lights is, do you want to see, or just be seen? Many people ride in places where there's plenty of ambient lighting when it's dark, so they only need to be seen. But if you ride your MTB in the trails, you will need all the light you can get.

--J

Bike lights are cheaper than they ever have been. You can get a light that's way brighter than almost anyone would ever need (unless you're doing very high speed downhills in pitch darkness on a backwoods trail) for $30. I have used a variety of lights and my favorite right now is one I paid < $40 for.

When I started 12 years ago, LED lights were a joke, anything near as bright as the $30 light of today was $500, most of us hobbled by with home-built incandescent MR16 and lead acid cell contraptions that weighed 3 pounds or more and had miserable runtimes. I had an HID light at one time - About 2/3 as bright as today's $30 eBay special, cost $250 (because I cobbled it together out of the cheapest junk I could find) ran almost 90 minutes on a huge, heavy NiMH bottle battery, took 60 seconds from strike to full brightness.

Sure there ARE $1000 lights. There are also $5000 headphones and million dollar cars. So what? Nobody actually needs them, they're there for people who have either very specialized needs or who have a need to show off how much money they can afford to waste.

Agreed that there are some crazy prices for lights out there. One problem with buying lights is that there is no really good way to do a cost benefit analysis. With parts, I have no problems in doing a cost benefit analysis. With lights, the costs are so tremendous that it's easy to justify overspending on lights. So I paid more than $40 for my headlight and I'm really happy with it. It's a light and motion commuter 550 which I picked up on a blowout for under $100. It probably costs even less now.

The prices for lights at Wal-Mart and other department stores though are ridiculous. I paid 15 dollars for a cheap Bell 3 LED headlight.

On eBay I paid about the same price for a 2x Cree LED unit that is basically the equivalent of a single car headlight.

I also paid 15 dollars at Wal-Mart for a front/rear light set. The rear light broke within a month due to corrosion. Couldn't even handle some rain. The front light was so cheap it didn't even have a diffuser.

The amount you use a light determines how much it's worth. Many of us ride often and want a light that we can rely on. I paid about $160 for my dynamo light set, including dynamo front hub, headlight, and tail light. I regret not building it sooner, because the system works so well for me. It is one of the factors that makes it my first choice of bike to ride (among my too-many bikes). $160 is very low for a system like this, and I now understand why people pay more.

I am with you if you are implying that "lighting up a stadium" is overkill. In fact, as we have discussed, it can also be rude, depending on the situation.

Reliable mounts are important to me. It's really annoying if I need to fuss with the light to put it on or take it off. Some flashlights make great light, but having a mount intended for a bicycle is a plus for me. I spent too much on high power LED flashlights, batteries, and chargers before I realized that only a bike light would make me happy. I would have saved money if I had known this at first.

Some people ride at night only occasionally, so $30 lights are fine. They have to spend more time charging them (or replacing disposable batteries) than I do, but it's not a lot of time if they don't use them heavily.

1600Lm CREE XML T6 LED Bicycle Bike Head Lamp 8 4V 6400mAh Solar Tail Light Pack | eBay

Going at a moderate pace in a well lit city the issue is Being Seen , and seeing Potholes before you Hit Them.


Going Fast on Unlit roads You need More light and a beam to see further ahead of you so You dont out run your Lights.

I ride all night on bad roads in bad weather. Flashlights won't cut it. Reliability and durability of connections to the bike and the battery are critical. Cheap lights fall of the bike. Electrical connections fail. Connectors leak. Switches fail. Now to the more subtle....try turning a Moonshine light on when it is cold. I run two Panasonic 3400Ah 186500 batteries into my $80 Fenix BT20 is sufficient for a 600K ride although I put a complete redundant backup on the bike. I only run them at middle level of power output, so, they would not light up a stadium. I think my life is worth $160. You have not lived until your lights fail.....on a mountain descent.

read this review....if after reading this link and my comments above, you decide to buy garbage....GL

https://www.bikeforums.net/electronic...-comments.html

Just buy this one:

Robot Check

I don't know how well the light works, but I'm not crazy about rubber band mounting which I've seen on other lights as well. One of the things I like about this Zefal light is that it not only has a quick on/off slide mount, the angle is also adjustable. That rubber band also surely has a finite lifespan.

I use the bike for short local hops - going to the gym, Walmart and always remove the light along with the seat. Very quick and simple with the slide mount.

Thread became a shopping suggestion so I guess I'll play. Wally shopping says quality is not important, just price.

Since you remove the seat post any how, Here's a tail light and seat post combination .. Built-in Bicycle Tail Light - LightSKIN

I like Dyno hub lights myself , but Attach a Light - Twofish Unlimited has a velcro strap Block for fitting a Flash light on your handlebars .

Run into a black bear cub because you didn't see it and mama bear will eat you.
Cheers,
David in Alaska

Lights that use watch batteries (e.g. CR2032) are not for heavy use. They don't cast much light, and while the battery may last a while, they cost a lot per milliamp-hour, so the fuel cost is pretty bad unless the light is just for occasional use.

"Just buy this" doesn't seem to reflect a lot of research. There is no one-size-fits-all bike light, and we don't even know the original poster's particular needs.

There is a difference from a $1200.00 Light vrs a $12.00 Light but you buy what you are happy with. I myself prefer the Lupine BettyR14 4500 Lumen Light.

You have it exactly backwards. Yes, you want to see potholes before you hit them in the city but that isn't usually much of a problem. The real issue is "being seen". 150 lumen lights like Robert P is shilling are lost in ocean of lights that you find in any urban and most suburban areas. In other words, a cyclist with "be seen" lights isn't. They are lost in the background. You need much more light to "be seen".

On unlighted roads, you don't really need as much light to be seen because the ambient light is almost nonexistent. An observer can see even a dim light from quite a distance.

On a dark country road, I sometimes only use 80 Lumens especially when noodling along at 12.7 mph. Rounded a corner on an evening ride once and seemingly out of nowhere there was a train crossing light. It was really blinding. It seems like it took 20 minutes before my eyes adjusted to the dark. I know we all differ in our night vision. My son can see deer across the cornfield when it is dark and I need good german glass to faintly make the silhouettes out. His eyes also adjust back to good night vision quicker. I almost wonder if putting out too much bike light on dark country roads limits some aspects of vision (peripheral and distance).....are we blinded by the bright LED lights. Can they be too bright or too white. I suppose I should read up...sorry.

I have an eDelux , the newer version 2 is brighter. ditto B&M's Battery Headlight.. premium is the new one

My experience as well. Most of my commute is on an unlit MUP. In the winter both directions are done in the dark. I'll run both my handlebar light and helmet-mounted light on their lowest settings (and if a clear night, with a full moon, I've been known to turn off one or both, especially as dawn begins to break). Once I hit the "mean streets" of bleary-eyed drivers who haven't yet gotten their coffee, or are busy trying to find out what emails and texts have come in overnight, then both light levels go up, and (during the daylight hours) the bar light goes into strobe mode.

My current favorite light was $32, and that's half the cost of the first serious flashlight I bought 7 years ago. The redundancy and low costs have left me making a choice between lights that would have cost way more if they had been available back then.

Depends on how much your life is worth to you. I have $350 dollars worth of lights on our two bikes each for a total of $700 dollars in lights, but we feel our lives are worth that amount of money.

We have a Bontrager Ion 700 for the front, a DesignShine 500 on the seat post and two Cygolight Hotshots one on each seat stay to form a triangle of light from the rear.



Can you see me now?

FWIW, I've been running < $50 headlights every day for about 5 years now (before that a variety of DIY lights). OK, the Magicshine was originally I think $80 but it's about equivalent to today's $30 lights. So far none of them has ever caused me any significant trouble, other than I replace the wiring every 2 years or so (at a cost of about $3 each time).

My taillight is a DS500, I spent money back there, but for headlights as long as I can see the potholes I'm good, so I have a $25 eBay special plus a lockblock on the handlebars and an 18650 flashlight in my bag as a backup (unneeded for years now).

I find I need pretty bright lights even on the back roads, because on my route the roads are really chewed up, with holes, grooves, really bad patch jobs that are falling apart, etc. I've had to kick my light up to high (800 to 1000 lumens) from medium (about 500) on rural paved roads with no traffic, because the holes are arranged in minefields that can herd me into corners unless I can see them all 75+ feet out.

You can buy an extremely bright, high quality bike light for less money now than ever before. The changes due to LED lights have been amazing and very beneficial to cyclists. My Light & Motion Urban 800 cost me a little more than $100 new and puts out more light with good battery run time than a light that would have cost more than $500 a few years ago. You can buy equally bright LED flashlights for even less.

I also agree with others that you need a less bright light on dark, unlit roads than in the city with much more ambient light from signs, street lights, cars, etc. It's counter-intuitive, but your eyes adjust to dark conditions and pupils open wider. However, in moderately light conditions such as urban areas, your pupils don't open as wide. You also need brighter lights in the city so that car and truck drivers can see you.

My commute home from work late at night has me through a variety of lit areas, from an urban downtown setting to half lit neighborhoods to a completely pitch black MUP. No single light is ideal for all three conditions. I currently am using a Cygolite Dash 320 with blinking mode for the urban area to be seen and then the 320 lumen to light up the neighborhood roads and MUP. 320 lumens is the bare minimum that I would ride on that MUP since there is an abundance of wildlife that likes to dart across from skunks to chipmunks to daredevil rabbits. There are deer as well as foxes and late one summer night last year, I heard two coyotes screaming at each other which was a little too close for comfort. This is all on an 8.5 mile commute which seems pretty extreme for such a short distance.

I just mounted my NiteRider Lumina 350 off of my fat bike back onto my commuter. I prefer this light as it has a regular mount instead of having to mess with the strap of the Dash 320.

That's what I'm talking about. How much do you figure that Lupine light actually cost to manufacture?