Which bike lights?

Nasqueron

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

That's what I thought until I tried out cheap lights from a recommendation here and I've been amazed at how well the cheap lights work. Their performance is good and so far I've had very few reliability issues, only a single one has failed on me which for a tenner I wasn't losing any sleep over. The advantage of having multiple cheap ones is that I can easily have spares for myself or others when out a night ride, it's great being able to loan people lights as no lights in the middle of a pitch black forest is a real problem. Also since they're all powered by 18650 or standard battery packs I can easily keep them going for as long as needed.

On the other hand, I wouldn't use any of the cheap batteries or packs that come with the lights as even aside the potential risk of them failing badly, their performance is usually poor.

John

Seen enough reports anecdotally of the cheap Chinese lights conking out very quickly if not catching fire when charging to be prepared to invest in good ones. The ebay specials aren't designed for proper road use and dazzle drivers and other riders, they are not well made for road use i.e. a good beam lighting up the road immediately in front of you instead just radiate light all over the place meaning seems brighter but less use in actually seeing what you need

Herbalus

cubegame wrote: »

Call it payback time.

Don't be ridiculous.

I am a driver as well as a cyclist. Nobody wins if you make the roads more dangerous than they already are.

[Deleted User]

Tried the cheap dual Cree ebay lights. Found that the reflectors corrode quickly in bad weather and with mine the on/off switch also failed. Water ingress? Probably lasted 4 months tops.


On the plus side they are stupidly bright and the battery's lasted fine for my off-road commute with occasional road so switched to lowest brightness.


Will defo get another set as Amazon refund when they go faulty so free lights for winter


Prior to this I had a Lazyne, over priced unreliable crap which my colleague is also finding out...

Johnmcl7

Nasqueron wrote: »

Seen enough reports anecdotally of the cheap Chinese lights conking out very quickly if not catching fire when charging to be prepared to invest in good ones. The ebay specials aren't designed for proper road use and dazzle drivers and other riders, they are not well made for road use i.e. a good beam lighting up the road immediately in front of you instead just radiate light all over the place meaning seems brighter but less use in actually seeing what you need

The market for non-branded lights is huge and there are better ones out there and there's rubbish, same with anything really - there's often copies of cheap lights which look the same but you see inside and there's no proper sealing, dodgy soldering etc. I've used the cheap lights for four years now and through mostly horrendous conditions including heavy rain, mud and being smacked off the bars repeatedly - I ride all through winter and do 24 hour endurance racing. Most of my group use similar lights and the failure rate is very low plus they're so cheap that if the odd one does occasionally die, I can have spares with me (which have occasionally saved the riders with £200-£300 lights which aren't immune to failure either) and if I smash one up or plain lose it then no big deal.

As well as choosing a decent cheap light, it's also important to choose decent batteries - most of the batteries that come with the lights are utter garbage and not worth using. The 18650 batteries are a standard (although not a common one in the UK) so you can choose your own batteries of a suitable quality and there's also decent 18650 battery packs as well.

In terms of beam patterns, again it varies - there's plenty branded lights that are not suitable for on road use either, you can choose whatever you want for your use. I usually mix weaker and more powerful lights together leaving the weaker ones for road use and a backup in case the main light goes.

This was a single lap from the Puffer 24 hour race this in January year which unfortunately did also involve some crashing but despite most of my laps being in darkness and using old lights, no problems with any of themL



John