Lights (Take me home Country roads)

[Hacienda71]

Solarstorm X3 U2 for me. Three brightness settings. From fine to ride with on an unlit country road through to blimey that is brighter than a car headlight. Quite a spotty light not as diffused as my old magicshine, so less chance of annoying oncoming drivers. Circa £25 from a UK distributor on ebay.

 

[Ganymede]

Don't forget that on back roads, that are also narrow, the lights are required as much to allow you to be seen, as much as you need them to see with.

True - but I use a single cateye and I'm always seen on little country lanes - cars always dip their headlights. I'm not an immensely fast rider (you can't be on a lot of those lanes) and if you were haring along you'd need something with a bit more reach I guess. Being seen is more about wearing reflective stuff on your clothing/luggage/bike I think.

 

[mustang1]

2 maybe 2 and a half years so far.
I've owned 3, I had my slightly higher one too high & was getting flashed/blinded by cars. I was lazy and tried to twist it round the handle bars while riding without slackening off the bracket. I broke the little plastic retaining clip, it fell off at the next junction & smashed.

One wouldn't be sufficient but having two on constant not flashing is ok for a 4am pitch black country lane with no street lighting. Well it is for me atleast.

How long do yours typically last before dying? What kind of faults should I be keeping an eye out for?

Whenever in change the batteries, the light works for the next trip, but then just stop. I have to tap the light, hard, and then it comes on. When I want to put it into flashing mode, it flashes really fast. I pat it some more and it works properly again. Then it stops working. Then it becomes intermittent.

Eventually just stops working. Different el135's have had similar combinations of problems. One website suggested water gets in and another suggested I have "clip something in" but I never looked into it much.

 

[Tony Smith]

Thank you all. I'm sure that I can get something suitable from these suggestions.

 

[Cringles]

I'm pretty impressed with the CREE XM-L T6 LED . Though a quick google leads to some forums with horror stories of the batteries exploding. Can happened with any battery to be fair. But cheaper Ebay lights always make me that bit more concerned.

 

[shouldbeinbed]

Cree T6 deal extreme import version: Could I suggest you buy a fresnel glass for it too to replace the plain one, it'll give you a better spread of light onto the road for your own benefit & won't dazzle the 2 ton of metal coming at you as much.

I use a cateye volt 300 as my to see by light in pitch dark country parkland on my Brompton, so fairly slow 10-12mph pace,

I like it a lot as it is very compact & easily pocketable, spare mounts are £3 a pop in Evans for other bikes, it has a good battery, USB charge at work during the day if needs and for better lit bits, it has the dual steady/flash mode that works pretty well with the 300 lumen flash and lower power steady setting. Also the volt 50 rear battery is interchangeable so if you had the set and found yourself out of juice mid ride, you've got an instant replacement power pack (300 v 50 output so the rear lasts much longer on a charge) - just need to remember a spare back light in that eventuality

I see that they've brought a more powerful Volt 700 out. if the 300 is a benchmark, then the 700 will be a hugely bright light and well worth considering

 

[Cringles]

Any chance you have a convenient link? :P I'd mostly use the light for two areas in particular which has no cars anyway. My little Moon Meteor does the job for traffic. I plan to pick up a set of the See.Sense lights after Christmas. I'm always more concerned about being seen from the back, rather than the front. I already run a Moon Light & a Knog on the back.

 

[4F]

I use a Lezyne micro drive which I find fine for dark country lanes

 

[biking_fox]

Chinese import from DXequipment - http://www.dx.com/c/lights-lighting-1399/flashlights-1307/bike-lights-1388. Cheap. Really cheap. SO cheap it makes all the UK retailers look like expensive rip-offs. OK it' s two week delivery time. But they've got actual lights you'd want to ride with*, and just amazingly cheap prices.

*metal bodied, waterproof, rugged, robust, bright, long burn times. Even have metal attachment brackets which is just unheard of elsewhere.

When mine turn up I'll let you know how I get on, but unless they're seriously misrepresenting themselves I won't be buying from a UK retailer again. Yes this includes wiggle, chain reaction and the rest.

 

[fossyant]

Dx is anything upto 6 weeks. If you want it quicker use the EU Direct option on their site. Just got a Solarstorm XT40 via EU Direct and it took two weeks.

My fav. Light is my Yinding 2xU2. It's tiny and packs a punch. Great on road on low as it uses optics so keeps the beam quite tight if pointed down.