Bike lights, which ones?

[Doyleyburger]

Anyone ordered one of those cree lights from China on ebay ?
Only a fiver or so
......or is it not worth the risk

 

[slowmotion]

spot on @wajc , Hope's customer service is spot on.

Absolutely. I have a four year old Hope Vision 1. I broke the mounting bracket due to my own clumsiness and they refused payment for a replacement even though I offered it. Likewise a replacement battery holder. I can't praise them too highly.

 

[uclown2002]

Absolutely. I have a four year old Hope Vision 1. I broke the mounting bracket due to my own clumsiness and they refused payment for a replacement even though I offered it. Likewise a replacement battery holder. I can't praise them too highly.

Same with me. Repaired my light out of warranty FOC and replaced damaged battery holder at same time.

 

[slowmotion]

Maybe so my friend. I like to think of it as a cheaper solution. I havnt found any problems and I have had them for around 2 months. I have made sure that the front light is angled towards the ground so I don't blind any of those careful motorist out thare and it dose the job as you will recall I only use my lights should I be caught short of light rather than mid night runs. Thanks for the replie though. To me at this point in time I would love to have all the gear I just can't justify a weeks pay for the pro systems and prefer to stay away from the horrible bulky lit sets with wires and battery packs etc

I recently did exactly the same as you to augment my Hope light. A cheap 1800 lumen torch...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/331109112985#ht_4937wt_1148

...a 26650 battery charger with two Trustfire batteries...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271391606...NX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649#ht_2614wt_904

...and a bar mount.

For road riding you need a reasonably narrow beam to prevent dazzling other road uses so I chose a torch that has a zoom lens to focus the spot at a convenient size. After a bit of experimentation I fixed the lens in my chosen zoom position with some electrical insulation tape, and also replaced the O-rings on the end caps of the torch.

It seems to work well but I can't tell how reliable it will prove to be because I've only had it for ten days. BTW, Torchy the Battery Boy warns people away from Ultrafire batteries but I have read reasonable reviews of genuine Trustfire ones. There are heaps of bootleg 18650 and 26650 batteries swirling about on Ebay, some of which are rumoured to spontaneously combust when charging.

 

[Mugshot]

plus reliability is an issue with them

Not in my experience, my £25 ebay special has been on my commuter for two years now and is as good as new, the same can't be said of my Hope vision one which cost more than double the price.

 

[mark william]

i have one of the Luu pico pro it is 520 lumen have had it for about 3 months now and i find that it is really bright and is high quality the battery life is also really good on it. previously i have had a light and motion stella 150 but that wasn't that bright nor the battery life and the battry was as a separate unit which was really anoying. i did have one of the cheap cree lights but the battery life started to go down quite quickly till it was lasting about 20 miniuits.