lights for night riding

[Tel]

Alistair.
          This is a bit of the blurb from Ayup;

With any night riding the most important thing is light. Solid reliable light! Most riders we spoke to have experienced some kind of problems with their lights. During some of our after dark testing escapades we have helped fellow riders with failed lights. Some of these lights were the expensive HID and LED lights currently on the market. Circuitry, vibration, switch, leads, have all played a part in their lights demise. This did come as a surprise to us as we did not expect these expensive lights to have any such problems. So what we have done for now is to change the format of how we control the light and now it has been made even more reliable. We’ve taken out the switch ‘smarts’ and we now offer a lighting system with the purest possible light beam and extremely long burn times. For example, our current 3 hr hour burn battery will run at full power for 3 hours. It will then slowly dim to that of a bright torch by 7 – 8 hours. You can still ride with this light output after the initial 3 hours or at least get you home if something happened deep in the forest or bush.
 I take your point of it not being much fun to have your lights go off in the middle of something fancy at night in the woods.
Cheers, Tel.

[jeffhop]

ive got to be honest here and say that you cant justify the price paid for bike lights, i stupidly paid nearly £200 for a light which i thought was going to be brilliant (pun) only to find that 2 £14 led torches are just as good.  if you can get a CREE M-CEE from deal extreme.com theyre supposed to be the absolute biz and for less than £50 with batteries.

[Colin]

........................Circuitry, vibration, switch, leads, have all played a part in their lights demise. .................. We’ve taken out the switch ‘smarts’ ........................

 .................I take your point of it not being much fun to have your lights go off in the middle of something fancy at night in the woods.

Hmmmmmmmm, yes, so do I..........that's one of the reason's I've been looking at lights and why I have had the time to do so........................My "Smart" lights decided to start turning themselves off when subjected to fairly heavy vibration, I then had to press the multi-function button for 2 secs for them to turn back on again, so not a great experience in pitch dark at high speed on a bumpy track...........cut to scene 2.............About 5 weeks ago, above scenario, lights went off down a notoriously hoof printed bridleway at a fair speed, I pressed the on button, got distracted and hit a rut, bike whipped out from under me and I sensibly avoided putting my hand out and tried to roll as I landed, instead I slammed my right shoulder into the ground and was then writhing in agony while my mates laughed! (until they realised I wasn't mucking about!) I finally rode home with just one arm on the handlebars and spent the next six days trying to convince myself it was getting better, I finally gave in and went to A&E when the Ibuprofen and Brandy ran out............I had dislocated my clavicle! Once a nice little Filipino Physio lady had popped it back in for me I was a lot better and so now I just have to build the strength and movement back up again.
So, the lights I'm building will be fairly simple on the switching front, but I am using a couple of switched resistor positions to allow dimming of the Buckpuck driver current.
Hopefully It'll be pretty bombproof!

Col.

[shovelon]

............I had dislocated my clavicle! Once a nice little Filipino Physio lady had popped it back in for me I was a lot better and so now I just have to build the strength and movement back up again.

Col.

OMG

Did something similar to my left shoulder. OUCH!

Get well soon.
Terry

[DugB]

My wife is Filippino (well, she's more a hard-as-nails New Yorker more than anything) and I can attest to the healing powers they possess ;-) Sorry to hear about the body damage, though. My worst biking injury came in the form of a herniated leg muscle...my leg got caught between my front tire and downtube just as I went off a curb, only to have my front shock compress with my leg stuck in between. Ever since there's been a hole in the leg muscle, through which the soft under layer can pop through when I flex. But alas, I was not able too blame it on malfunctioning lights (more like malfunctioning brains).

- Doug :-)

[jeffhop]

ive got a dislocated clavicle, i got it in 1999 playing football and its still out, i just managed to avoid the screws through the bone and wired wrapped round it operation by talking the surgeon out of it and promising to try and be careful  i still get pain from it now especially when climbing in the saddle when its cold.

[IMO]

I run a  Cateye Stadium HId on the bars. Its a bit of a beast with a larg secondary ballast pack and a water bottle battery. 2 1/2 hr - 3hr run times, with similar re-charge. Also have the TTT  AA torch on my lid.
Really impressed for the money. You will not find a better light for at least 5 times the price if not more. Ditched the alkalines and fitted 2700mah AA NIMH , gives  approx 2 hours use. Latest trick seems to be 2 on your lid , with the larger C cell unit on the bars , with a 6.6amp 3.6V LiPO battery. Basically remove the batteries and shorten the case  to keep the clicky switch, then drill a small hole and re-wire the terminals. A super light set for the price of a tank of fuel (ish) , although ther is some faff with soldering.

The MTE p7 ssc is getting good reveiws,  good price from dealextreame, although the 90 min runtime is  a limiting factoe, and they are never 900 lUmen , more like half that.

[dcarr1971]

...my leg got caught between my front tire and downtube just as I went off a curb, only to have my front shock compress with my leg stuck in between...

Wow DugB...I hate to ask, but how did you got twisted up so that your leg was between the front tire and downtube? 

My worst accident was pretty minor compared to you guys, but only because of dumb luck...about 5 yrs ago I riding at dusk one evening; coming down a moderately steep hill in a place called Frick Park (in Pittsburgh) following a deer trail when the trail crossed a brief level spot with a leaf covered muddy depression and a large tree root on the far side before the slope resumed.  My front wheel hit the mud and sunk a little, then rolled through to the root where it stopped and turned into something that resembled a pretzel.  When I went over the bars I broke one of the most basic rules and put my right hand out to save my face from root, ground, and the local flora.  Luckily, my hand landed in the mud and slid; my helmet absorbed the blow from the root in the front and my saddle, which whacked me in the back of the head before I could get my feet free...I ended up sore, but the destroyed wheel and seriously damaged pride were the worst of my problems.

Anyway, if I'd been using a light I probably could have save myself a lot of grief...my 754 was never the same after that and now rests in what I think I'm going to start calling my Proflex graveyard...

[Colin]

...............in what I think I'm going to start calling my Proflex graveyard...

.......please say.............."PRO~FLEX Museum".............it just sounds better..........<GRIN>

Wow, Jeff ! I got off easy then!
Mine was a "type 1, AC joint dislocation" so not too bad and getting better every day (touch head)
Went out for a quick spin on the XP-X yesterday on the road to buy a 2.1mm DC connector from Maplins which I think is the last part I need to commence construction of my Maxx Enduro clone light.

Col.

[DugB]

...my leg got caught between my front tire and downtube just as I went off a curb, only to have my front shock compress with my leg stuck in between...

Wow DugB...I hate to ask, but how did you got twisted up so that your leg was between the front tire and downtube? 

I'd like to know  the same thing! ;-)

Ah, I've seen many a wipeout in Frick & Schenley. There's that one parking lot down at the end nearest to the slag dumps (where US Steel used to pile the leftover slag from the iron smelting process...for everyone else on this list this heap of slag is enormous...must cover the area of 10 or 20 football fields and possibly 200 feet high...you feel like you're on a black Mars when you're back there...it's literally like 120 years of slag from the US's largest steel producing city, but I digress...)...the lot with the steep hill that leads down to it, with the guardrail all around it. A friend came down that hill and lost control, running straight into the guardrail, doing an endo only to find that his fork was bent backwards like 20 degrees.

I wasn't on this ride, but another friend who worked at Thomson for years was riding in Frick, fell and punctured his lung on a stick. One of the last times I was riding through there I came across my high school Physics teacher and his wofe out for a stroll. :-)

Someone pulled a gun on me and a different friend down in the valley under the Forbes Ave. bridge...be careful down there!

If I ever head back to the 'burgh with my bike I'll have to drop you a line. I'd love to ride some of those trails again, but wouldn't want to do 'em alone.

- Doug :-)

[sammydog]

I've been using the Ay-Ups now for about a year.

For the price I haven't used anything that goes close to them. Haven't had a single problem at this point and the batteries are going strong. Actually the battery size is another big plus. Having the battery on the helmet or under your stem really keeps things nice and neat.

I got the standard kit (two 3 hout batteries, one 6 hour batteries, a wide beam light for the bars and narrow for my head). I've got the older batteries without the on/off switch, but the battery life is as claimed so I am not so worried about needing to turn off while riding.

[jtolputt]

Well I recently took a risk in buying two fenix torches and have to say I was pleasently suprised!

I purchased two fenix L1D Q5 LED torches just 9.7 cm long and one LED but will blast out 120 lumens each all powered by 1 AA Battery each.

I was sceptical at first and was all ready to send them straight back but they are a hell of a light for the price £35.95 each got two mounts for £16 a total of £91 now considering how much ive seen some LED light go for these are great id say the give the single HOPE lights a run for thier money.

only draw back ive found is the amount of flood they give off its very narrow but with the two toghether either one on the bar and one on my helmet or both on bar they work great would definatly recommend them as a cheap alternative  to the 200+ lights out there





JaseT

[u02sgb]

Hi,
  I've got an old Electron Halogen system overvolted with a battery I got from batteryspace.com and two 15W halogens overvolted from 12V to 14.4V.  Burn time seems to be pretty good as I haven't run the battery flat and I've been out for more than two hours before.

I'm planning on getting an exposure joystick for Xmas to stop thinking about various LED upgrades to the Electrons!  Think the exposure as a head torch should be enough to cope with the Scottish winter.

Stu.

[rapiddescent]

colin>
welcome to the broken clavical club!  I did mine on the Elephant & Castle roundabout in central London, UK a few years ago.   Just like you I rode on with one hand and when i got to work couldn't even lift a bit of paper in my left hand so the folks at work sent me to the hospital for an xray...  The bad news is that it will take about 4 month to fix it up and you won't be able to lie in bed a certain way (4 years on and I still don't feel comfy on my left side!)  You'll also want to stab and kill people when they bump into you in the street.

but the good news is that you'll have a battle scar - a little hump on your shoulder blade for ever more - the chicks dig it.  I think Mike Hammer has one as well!

callum
rds

[mootsguy]

  Not that anyone would ever poach illicit trail at night, but I have recently been using a Vetta Nano-Lux with the red filter to run along on my highly legal local river trails at night.

Surprisingly, even as the only light source this little beauty is completely adequate for trail riding.

It uses a 3W solid state emitter and 4 AA batteries in a slim battery case to produce 350 lux on the high setting and 190 on the low. Run time is around 18 hours on the high setting and 33 on the low. The low setting is quite acceptable for commuting purposes. Also 4 spare AA batteries are very easy to carry in case of problems.

Nice light for around $150 US.