Front Light for bike - Advice sought :-)

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debeast

New Member
Hi there,

people have very kindly offered me lots of advise on what rear lights to get and how to phrase my questions for a front 1 . So here goes:

I will be commuting about 50 miles a week
I will be riding when its dark in the mornings and/or dark in the evenings
I intend to ride all year round
I will be riding where there are no street lights on country roads
UPDATED: Budget not excessive but i don't have a number in mind as i'm a newbie

Could you advise me on the 'best' light for me :-)

thank you

Nathan
 

ianrauk

Tattooed Beat Messiah
Location
Rides Ti2
What is your budget?
 
OP
OP
D

debeast

New Member
dammit i knew i'd miss something!

Nothing excessive lets say for the budget! no number in mind though as i really am a newbie
 

marinyork

Resting in suspended Animation
Location
Logopolis
I was saying this on the other thread or trying to someone else in that although the hope 1 does seem very expensive for a newbie it's MUCH better than say the cateye el-530 or say the cateye single shot and all these overpriced ones in that sort of price range. When I got my Hope there did seem to be fewer SMIDSYs than with the other lights.
 
I tend to favour more but cheaper lights than the Hope but not all of my ride is in unlit country roads. In particular I find a helmet torch like the Cateye 410 quite effective on dark lanes (and for occasional mounting on a roadbike ;-) ) You can look where you want the light. Its also sometimes back up by the Tesco Cree torch however and although that is a great bright/cheap light, I'm unsure if its still available. As I said though if more of my ride was along unlit roads I think I'd beef up my lighting.
 

andrew_s

Legendary Member
Location
Gloucester
Magicshine (or about £50 from Dealextreme in Hong Kong, but takes about a month to arrive)
 

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
If I was doing country roads definitely something at least as bright as a Hope 1 (which I have and like), and possibly a smaller cheaper light as your backup - near town etc. I know you can put the Hope on flash or carry spare batteries but the Hope doesn't fade ... it just switches off when the power is too low. Hope runs on 4 AA batteries.
 

marinyork

Resting in suspended Animation
Location
Logopolis
summerdays said:
If I was doing country roads definitely something at least as bright as a Hope 1 (which I have and like), and possibly a smaller cheaper light as your backup - near town etc. I know you can put the Hope on flash or carry spare batteries but the Hope doesn't fade ... it just switches off when the power is too low. Hope runs on 4 AA batteries.

You can buy a spare battery mount for about £4, put in 4xAAs and then swap them round very quickly. That said the life on one charge is so insanely long on the two lower settings you barely ever need to do this.
 

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
marinyork said:
You can buy a spare battery mount for about £4, put in 4xAAs and then swap them round very quickly. That said the life on one charge is so insanely long on the two lower settings you barely ever need to do this.

I think it was such a novelty that I quite often ran them on the High setting - as I don't cycle that much after dark and mostly lit roads. But I had to go through a dark, unlit area with huge potholes that meant I needed it on full - and I wasn't brilliant at remembering to change the batteries until I got into a routine. Then it was spring time.

I still think its always worth having 2 rear lights and 2 front lights in case one fails/falls off etc. The second set don't have to be as good as the main set.
 
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