Banjo
Fuelled with Jelly Babies
- Location
- South Wales
Yeh but apart from that there great.No pleasing some people.
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Yeh but apart from that there great.No pleasing some people.
derrick
The Glue that binds us together.
- Location
- On the edge of London
I will let you know if it burns my house down, Anyone with half a brain does not leave those batteries unattended whilst charging,
T.M.H.N.E.T
Rainbows aren't just for world champions
- Location
- Northern Ireland
magicshine, c&b seen etc etc etc etc
Dave the Smeghead
Über Member
To be seen in London I use Lezyne Femto one on the front and 2 on the rear. Have the front on flash and the rears on different flash pulses. Seems to do the trick in a year of commuting. For the portion of my ride that is on unlit roads I use a LED supabrite. It has a separate battery pack but I am now having to use the battery in a pocket as the stitching on the "webbing" type holder gave out recently and I haven't got round to sewing it back up yet. It throws a good beam pattern on the road and lights the road up pretty well. The only criticism is that it moves when you hit bumps but it is easy to pull back into place.
I have paid for a Blaze Burner rear light through Kickstarter. Awaiting delivery now and if it as good as it is supposed to be it may relegate the Femtos to supplementary rather than main lighting.
I have paid for a Blaze Burner rear light through Kickstarter. Awaiting delivery now and if it as good as it is supposed to be it may relegate the Femtos to supplementary rather than main lighting.
summerdays
Cycling in the sun
- Location
- Bristol
His point was that if you have two then you have a back up, and I agree with it. I've set off on a journey and the batteries seemed fine when I switched them on but faded quickly on the journey or recently the bracket for one worked its way loose just as I went into a park so I caught it, but having two means than you have a back up. At the front you are usually aware if the front one disappears for some reason.
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
But then, a circular beam is far harder to aim onto the road properly. If mounted about a metre up, aiming 8ft ahead means either you're dazzling oncomers or you've a 45 degree beam or less, and few unapproved lights seem that constrained.
You also need much brighter lights for circular beams than asymmetric ones, as explained at http://swhs.home.xs4all.nl/fiets/tests/verlichting/index_en.html#licht-bundel-verlies
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
If it's in use, it's subject to all the same external hazards as the other light and not a backup. I carry a backup light in my bag, but I check whether my main light is working by looking at it from time to time.
summerdays
Cycling in the sun
- Location
- Bristol
You can check but if it fails I'd rather have a light already on, it's extremely rare for me to have a light fall off, but not so rare to have forgotten to charge my light, or to have it be switched on in my pannier by accident (or chucked in without switching off which I do if I'm hurrying.)
Back to the OP, if you have multiple bikes then see if you can get spare brackets to swap the light between bikes or if the bracket is integral to the light and just swaps with it anyway. I have some of each type. I'm disorganised so I easily loose lights temporarily but I have plenty of alternatives I can use. Some lights I can only use on one bike.
potsy
Rambler
- Location
- My Armchair
Same here, main light in use and a Moon 500 as back up, on the bars and ready should it be needed.
The Moon is the better quality light in terms of manufacture but the other one is much brighter and lights the road up nicely.
Banjo
Fuelled with Jelly Babies
- Location
- South Wales
Another important point is visibility from the side.
Some lights show almost zero light out to the side making u less visible to a driver pulling out of a side road.
Some lights show almost zero light out to the side making u less visible to a driver pulling out of a side road.
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
HA means no single points of failure, reliable crossovers and failure detection, while disaster recovery aims to prevent, detect and correct, so having two lights in use is neither. It's just two lights in use.
All the chat about brackets and recharging and side visibility and so on are really making me happy I'm running well-designed bolted-on dynamo lights on the bike I usually ride at night. I do have battery lights on the road bike, but they're all sadly now obsolete: the closest current ones are the Cateye GVolt (NOT Volt which has a much worse lens) and Axa Greenline, if you can find them in this country.
Tin Pot
Guru
In terms of bike lighting having two lights running is HA. Having a spare in the bag is DR.
Unless you have another proposal involving a four node cluster of geographically dispersed rear lights lights running a heart beat to let each other know they are running?
Actually, that sounds quite cool. Go ahead
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