UberIM

I will be 52 this month. Have been an avid commuter for almost 20 years.

The first real sign of aging has been the decline of my night vision; especially when it is raining ( I wear glasses and the splatter on my lenses refracts the light) and the wet road seems to engulf my 15W Planet Bike rechargeable light.

Has anyone else noticed this? Has anyone noticed that sometimes it is hard to decide which forum to post in?!?!?! Should this be in the electronics forum?

I have been reading the electronics forum and am intrigued by the dealextreme flashlights.

How does one compare Watts with lumens? a 700 L light is the equivalent to __ Watt light?

I commute on backcountry roads with no road lamps. It is 1/2 hour each way (7 miles one way-if anyone is reading other fora they will notice that I ride faster than the police do who ride at 12 MPH :-)). This time of the year I commute in pitch blackness both ways and need a light to have at least an hour of run time on high. I guess I am looking for more lighting than even my 15W provides (in inclement,rainy weather especailly).

Do I need 700L 900 Lumen two of each?

Thanks,

djnzlab1

HI,
When I was in the service we always allowed 20 mins of wearing red lens to allow our eye's to relax so we could see better, maybe you need to avoid bright light before your ride maybe have breakfast or coffee in a very dimly lit room, be sure your eyes are ok, any changes I worry about pre-diabeties.
A eye pressure check is important over 50..
Hope your well, just avoid bright light and see, Maybe a extra light on your hat or helmet would help so you can point were your looking without turning the bike...The game warden may think your shooting deer. hehe

I also have flashers on the front and back for those crates..
Doug

UberIM

I will try that red lens trick. I had my eyes checked-no intraocular pressure increase (glaucoma) and no pre diabetes (either with blood tests or eye exam). thanks..........

Kurt Erlenbach

I don't have any answer to your question, but I appreciate that someone other than me understands that the plural of "forum" is "fora," not "forums."

ken cummings

Watts vs lumen. Apples vs Bananas sort of. Watts are units of electrical energy - lumen are units of light energy. An efficient light source is one that puts out more lumen with fewer watts. A 50 watt incandescent light can be over-kill on back roads. A 13 watt HID (high intensity discharge) light can put out a similiar amount of light. The first can cost less and weight more. An over-volted LED (light emitting diode) can put out a lot of light but may not be much more efficient then a halogen cycle incandescent bulb. Yep, for lights do a thorough search over in the other forum. My dad stopped driving in his mid 80s when his night vision started to go. A top eye specialist should be able to test your night vision and advise you. An old Army Sarge taught me to close the eye towards bright headlights and look away, with the other eye serving to keep you from going off the road.

For the engineers out there a "standard" candle puts out ~ 12.5 lumen. Carbide lamps use a curved mirror to focus some of the light from their flame into a use-able beam.

stevesurf

I use the newer Dinotte lights that seem to have more even patterns and high color temp, yielding a more brilliant light. Be careful to turn the lights slightly down, since you'll blind even oncoming car drivers.

One trick is to consider glasses with clear lenses. You'll keep your eyes open wider and get decent eye protection. Yellow tint provides excellent contrast, but still will block some light at night, negating the benefit of wearing the glasses.

stapfam

At Twilight- those "Yellow" lens's do increase light vision but when dark any tint will affect vision. I do have inter changable lens's for my riding glasses. but evening rides and I always use the yellow. Only problem I find is that I am not accusstomed to yellow at night and it is shadow perspective that gets affected.

Suzie Green

Agree! I use the yellow tinted lenses most all the time now, as it seems like I have an easier time on the mtn bike in the woods. But it does block some light when it starts getting dark and the clear lense helps. I find that I don't see quite as well in the dark either, and am more cautious now while driving my car at night. The hazards of old age!

BTW, they say as you get older that your memory is the second thing you lose...I can't remember what the first thing is.

UberIM

I am not an engineer, though with bikes I wish I were. I was getting the idea that the apples/bananas analogy applied. And in the electrical forum it seems folks are trying to decipher the "in vivo" v. "in vitro" aspect of night lighting. Seems to me that two issues apply for me: 1. Cost is always an issue - if it weren't I would go for one of the Dinotte options. 2. I need more light at night than I used to........a fact..........I want to commute to work for the rest of my career..........just so many rewards for doing so............

Thanks,

UberIM

See below: I am not an engineer but a liberal arts major...........

Are you a writer, english teacher, professor? Or just a student of language?

tsl

Oh yes. Night blindness runs in my family. When I started, a 10W halogen NiteRider seemed brighter than needed. Then, at the same time as my endtable lamps became too dim, it became like, "Is this thing on?"

Not unless you want someone telling you that you really need to buy some parts and solder the thing together yourself. Or that real men have their own foundries and make their own LEDs for their lights.

You don't. They measure different things. Watts is how much electricity goes in, lumens is how much light comes out. Easiest place to see this is the light bulb section at the store, where watt consumption and lumens output are printed on the package. Compare the watts/lumens of traditional lightbulbs and compact fluorescents. That will explain the difference quickly.

I've seen similar LED flashlights--a mechanic at my LBS (and occasional 50+ forum contributer) showed me his yesterday. It was *impressively* bright, but the light is focused in a pinpoint spot.

I can't imagine trying to ride and being able to see only a 12-inch circle of light ahead of me. I wouldn't be able to go very fast since a hazard would pass through the pinpoint faster than a blink. Two would yield only two pinpoints. Further, my eyes would adjust to the brightness of the pinpoints, reducing my field of vision even further.

I currently ride with two of the 200L DiNottes mounted on my bars. Their beams are spread sufficiently that I can see both the full width of the path (or shoulder or lane) and the full area from the wheel out a hundred feet or so. (Bear in mind that 20 MPH is about 30 feet per second, so 100 feet is between three to six seconds at typical riding speeds--sufficient for my reaction time anyway.)

This is why I'm a fan of purpose-made bike lights. They have a useful beam spread.

That said, my vision continues to decline. I'm currently saving my pennies, bottles and cans for a dynamo hub and a Supernova E3 Triple light to supplement the DiNottes. I'm tired of having dozens of proprietary battery packs and chargers lying around, or worse, extracting funds from my wallet when they need to be replaced. Hence the dynamo hub, and the E3 is currently the brightest dynamo light out there.

You're welcome to try those impressively bright, pinpoint focused, incredibly cheap flashlights, then cobble together something to attach them to your bike. It may actually work for you. But me, I'll go with lights designed for cycling, even if they cost a lot more.

stapfam

Have to admit that if you are riding at night- then you need good lights. I have a twin 5w luxion LED lamp from Use and it is fantastic. Expensive but I can use that light offroad and that is where you need good lights. The spread of the beam is far enough and wide enough to give me enough confidence for the offroad downhills. I still say that the best light you can use though is a helmet light. Lights up where you are looking and not just where the bike is pointing.

I do not use the bike often enough to require a Hub dynamo but commuting- or lots of night rides and this is the way to go.

cccorlew

A guy I work with, and fellow bike commuter, has become a light junkie.
One bright LED on his helmet, a two-bulb halogen on the bars and a new set of twin LED lights on teh bars as well.
His light expenses now exceed the cost of his bike.
But, oh, can he see at night.
So, just add money and it will all work out.

lhbernhardt

Thanks for the appraisal of the lighting units. I am seriously considering doing some randonneur riding next year (I did this back in the early 80's) but back then was unhappy with the reliability/hassles of lighting units in those days. Today, the standard seems to be the Schmidt SON or Shimano dynamo front hub connected to a lighting system, so I appreciate your recommendation of the best lighting system out there. Looks like it's worth investigating, especially for randonneur rides where you are out in the middle of dark nowhere at 3 in the morning, and the ability to see the road becomes more important than the mere ability to be seen (which is sufficient for most city night riding, especially in the rain).

And speaking of the rain, the reason you need the brightest lights you can get is because wet roads have a way of just soaking up any light you can shine on them.

L.