Painfully bright Chinese lights

[GrumpyGregry]

The cheap ones are usually manufactured in China.

Most of my stupidly bright non-road legal (in Germany) lights are expensive and not of Chinese origin.

Point taken, thobut.

 

[GilesM]

I love the super bright lights (although none of mine are Chinese), they're fantastic, I can remember the days of the Ever Ready and Pifco ones, they weren't fantastic. I had a bus driver flashing his lights at me a few nights ago, it certainly beats a SMIDSY, although I do try to shield the light or switch to the lower settings if there is stuff coming towards me.

 

[double0jedi]

Raveman seem to do very bright lights that have a remote switch with a "dip" beam. This would seem to be a spiffing idea. Anyone have any experience of these?

 

[Threevok]

Raveman seem to do very bright lights that have a remote switch with a "dip" beam. This would seem to be a spiffing idea. Anyone have any experience of these?

I have a set of Cat Eye ABS ones in the house with a remote switch. I had them so long I had to buy a replacement switch off fleebay as I wore the other out

Nice lights although only 30w of power (one 20w and one 10w) all the switch did was turn the brighter wide beam one on/off

I still have them but I need a replacement charger and batteries - not cheap

 

[Drago]

The cheap ones are usually manufactured in China.

As are a lot of the expensive ones. Few are actually manufactured from scratch other than in the Far East.

 

[Lonestar]

[QUOTE 4983573, member: 9609"]do you know what make they are and do they come in red.

Seriously - I would quite like something that would stand out on a summers day that I could switch on when going under the shade of trees - need something to grab the attention of a motorist wearing sunglasses that has just come out of bright sunshine.[/QUOTE]

Yup I need really bright lights to catch the attention of a motorist that has just done a line of crack cocaine.

 

[Bollo]

[QUOTE 4984320, member: 9609"]I could have done with a sidewinder this afternoon to set off after a phone fiddling audi driver who did not offer a wave of thanks after I stopped to let him past on a single track.[/QUOTE]
Paging @ianrauk!

 

[KnackeredBike]

Literally the only people I have ever heard complain lights are too bright are on here, and the solution seems to be to import some expensive German ones.

On the road you are competing with a rubbish song on the radio, a text message, misaligned xenon headlights, some nob driving on side and foglights, cataracts. All traveling at 60mph.

Much better "bloody hell that was a bit bright" than distraction distraction distraction SMASH.

And you have to do that hundreds of times every journey without getting it wrong once.

 

[Randy Butternubs]

Literally the only people I have ever heard complain lights are too bright are on here, and the solution seems to be to import some expensive German ones.

On the road you are competing with a rubbish song on the radio, a text message, misaligned xenon headlights, some nob driving on side and foglights, cataracts. All traveling at 60mph.

Much better "bloody hell that was a bit bright" than distraction distraction distraction SMASH.

And you have to do that hundreds of times every journey without getting it wrong once.

I'm not super fond of being made temporarily blind while operating a vehicle. It's more than a small nuisance if it happens on the road.

I understand that people tend to buy what is easily available and that a large part of the blame lies with our shoddy lighting regs and what manufacturers make available in Britain. One should not have to order lights from a different country to get something decent.

Equally though it displays a spectacular lack of awareness not to realise that when you shine a bright light in people's eyes they cannot see and do not like it. I live near the Tarka trail and pass a fair number of bicycles in winter. Not once in several years has anyone angled their light down as they passed. And it isn't "a bit bright"; it's often worse than xenon car lights on high-beam. And that's goes double for those that set their lights to flash. Fortunately since this is off-road *is* just annoying rather than dangerous.

 

[Randy Butternubs]

Indeed so. I just tend to find that the perpetrator of most dazzlings is the driver of a car.

So do I, but then I probably encounter 1000 cars for every bicycle at night. A small but significant proportion of drivers need to readjust their headlights or be quicker with the low-beams. For bicycles its 100% of them and they are almost all the most dazzling.

 

[oldstrath]

A question and a comment for the road specific light enthusiasts. The question: my favourite offroad trails , for which I do need bright off road lights, are about 5 miles away on the road - do you really expect me to run two different lights?
The comment - my commuting bike has a BuMM Ixon which is usually fine. But sometimes, last night for example, a driver pulls out from a house entrance in a fashion that suggests they saw nothing of me. Always leaves me wondering if they'd have seen my Maxxd shining at them, and tempts me to go back simply to running the most antisocial light I can find.

 

[hoopdriver]

My guess is they saw you and just didn’t give a damn or else made the all too frequent assumption that since you were in a bicycle you couldn’t possibly be going more than 8mph or sme such. In neither case would a brighter light have altered anything. They’d have pulled out regardless.

And how often do you go off-road riding at night? And in any event, it is not unreasonable to expect even a fairly modestly priced light to have multiple beam settings so you could use an appropriate one for the road, them amp it up when you reached your trail.

 

[oldstrath]

My guess is they saw you and just didn’t give a damn or else made the all too frequent assumption that since you were in a bicycle you couldn’t possibly be going more than 8mph or sme such. In neither case would a brighter light have altered anything. They’d have pulled out regardless.

Actually I think this one genuinely didn't see me, quite possibly because she wasn't looking properly. But the look on her face when did become aware of my presence was quite something.

And how often do you go off-road riding at night? And in any event, it is not unreasonable to expect even a fairly modestly priced light to have multiple beam settings so you could use an appropriate one for the road, them amp it up when you reached your trail.

Two or three times a week in winter. Yes, of course i can and do run lower power, but i thought the whole point of the "road legal beam" argument was that unshaped "unsuitable" lights were terrible things of Satan, even at lower power levels?

 

[Lonestar]

I encounter dazzling bike lights on the CS 3 but rather that than some idiot ninja cyclist or pedestrian or car with faulty light's as per usual.

 

[Bodhbh]

Literally the only people I have ever heard complain lights are too bright are on here, and the solution seems to be to import some expensive German ones...

Much better "bloody hell that was a bit bright" than distraction distraction distraction SMASH.

The thing is most people aren't going to tell you directly, apart from the odd guy flashing their lights back. But in the past I have been told directly, as well as been blinded by other people myself, so it's not much of a jump to assume overly bright lights or lights with inappropriate optics blind people.

Regarding SMIDSYs, people just have brain farts whatever. I had an off when someguy pulled in front of me - AyUps (600lumen) lights shining right in his bloody face. Maybe the lights were a hinderance - he couldn't judge speed or distance - but they certainly didn't help much. Not that I'm saying the other extreme is great either.