Recommending lighting system for Dawn / Dusk
 

Hi All
With the summers here in Toronto being bloody hot, more and more of my riding will be during the early or later hours; thus will need a lighting system.

Recommendations?

http://www.performancebike.com/bikes...88_-1___400903

For my early morning commute, I picked up this light and love it. 300 Lumens is very bright. It has three settings, bright, brighter, and flash mode. I've only really used the flash mode and have done about 15 (45 min) commutes on one charge.
I like the USB charge. No batteries to worry about. Currently researching a usb charged rear light.

I see lots of Light & Motion and Cygo-Lite online...but then I also see some cool light designs which clip right onto the wheels. At night, when the wheels are spinning, it has both an effective and cool look to it.

Planet Bike Blaze one watt. It was about $60 for the set. LEDs are very bright and it runs a pretty long time on AA and AAA batteries. Happy with it so far.

Are you riding in streetlit areas, or does the light need to be bright enough to see by?

I use a P7 flashlight, which uses the Magicshine LED, from dealextreme for my headlight ($30 + $10 batteries + $8 charger), and a Cygolite Hotshot ($31) for my taillight. Both are extremely bright.

That Cygolite Hotshot is 2 watts. That's why its really bright from far away.

leave your wheels alone, keep their balance. ever curious about that? pick up one wheel and spin it fast and feel how out of balance it might be with whatever you have bolted on to it. then move that stuff and spin it again and feel how smooth it feels. I reluctanly removed my wheel reflectors because i just couldn't accept that much imbalance.

I'm looking for a bright and affordable tail light myself, something that can be seen during the day at a distance, the longer the better since the sooner I'm seen the more time a driver will have to react. I'm hoping that maybe something like the Planet Bike Superflash Turbo might get the job done. With so many different lights to pick from, it's hard to know which is best. I'm having the same problem in picking a wireless speedometer. I know there are some great expensive ones but I'm just looking for an adequate moderately priced one.

Lezyne Super drive up front and a Radbot 1000 in the rear. I do most my riding before sunrise and these have worked brilliantly. The USB is great on the Lezyne.

I use a Dinotte 300R for the rear and XML3s for the front (usually just use the fronts for night time.)

If you are not quite as dedicated a night-rider, you could go for the Dinotte XML-1 and a Planet Bike Superflash for the rear. The Dinotte products are very high-quality lights and you can count on them performing well in rain, snow, sleet, etc. I would not get any lesser light (har).

I'm quite happy with cheap chinese stuff I bought from dealextreme. There's no way I would drop $300 on a light.

The lights are more for me to be seen; I ride in street-lit areas so I can see my surroundings no problem.

The streets around here are so poorly lit. Even the ones with streetlights are too dim to rely on just that.

I feel for night rides I'd need something like this:

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=259535

Ha ha ha ha

(Northern VA) :rolleyes:

It's felt in and around 40-42C the last week; and most of that is from smog / pollution. Hot & Humid is fine, but add in the smog factor and it just isn't enjoyable.

Light and Motion vs Lezyne vs Cygo Lite....what's the difference with all of them; they look the same (although the Lezyne Super Drive in Black looks nice)

I use one from serfas. It was only 39.99 and is rechargeable via USB. It has LED bulbs and has thre settings. The best part is that it doesnt cost $100!

I run a 900 lumen LED flashlight on my bar, and another on my helmet in real darkness. In pre-dawn twilight, when you can pretty much see, I just wear clear lenses and put a basic blinky on my bar so that cars and joggers can see me.

The front blinky does not need to be powerful, in fact that is really annoying and probably distracting for drivers. A strong rear blinky is a very good idea, though.

Looks like MEC.ca has some decent pricing on lights; Expilion 500 to be specific. With my usual discount at the LBS, MEC turns out the same price; plus I am backed by their rock solid guarantee policies.

Cygolite Hotshot rear light, Magicshine on my helmet, Serfas True 500 on the handlebars. I use this set up when I commute during the winter when the sun sets early and a 6pm commute home becomes a night ride.

So, any more opinions. Cygolite Expilion 500 looks like the lead contendor.