Which bike light is best?

[Falco]

Wow - am surprised at this. I had issues with my battery which I bought a year ago and they are currently in the process of replacing it. Had no issues in getting this done.

 

Maybe you were just lucky. As stated, I couldn't find my invoice, but I know it was around a year.

 

Point is, had I bought the Ryder light, I could have taken it back any time and Omnico would have fixed or replaced it.

 

All this crowd did was tell me they couldn't find the invoice, so couldn't verify if it was a year or not ~ so much for SARS requirements of keeping these documents for 5 years ~ but anyway.

 

What really irritated me is that there was no form of compromise. Maybe they could have offered a repair or a replacement at a discounted price, anything that says they as a supplier want to keep their clients happy.

 

Right now, I'm an unhappy ex-customer, and I have no issue letting others know that.

[Wuzzie]

Exposure lights, look no further unless stolen will last forever,tough, contained battery, light and perfect beam.

 

http://www.use1.com/homepage/exposure-lights

[droenn]

is there a distributor for Lupine in the Western Cape?

[GoLefty!!]

is there a distributor for Lupine in the Western Cape?

 

due to low sales and cost of stock, not any longer. Contact james Thornhill-Fischer at Tygerberg MTB club, he may be able to help. I deal directly with Lupine and Nightlightning, as I have for the last 12 years.

I have also stopped importing Nightlightning due to unfavourable exchange rate but can assist with servicing and repair if you have bought one direct from Eric or obie1 or myself.

[droenn]

Cheers - also considering Light & Motion and possibly Lezyne options.

[Spinnekop]

Bought myself a little Lezyne. Works pretty well. No cables and extra batteries etc.

800 lumens with a VERY nice bar grip.

[droenn]

Bought myself a little Lezyne. Works pretty well. No cables and extra batteries etc.

800 lumens with a VERY nice bar grip.

 

Was it the Deca? For R1500 it looks like good value.

[droo]

Bought myself a little Lezyne. Works pretty well. No cables and extra batteries etc.

800 lumens with a VERY nice bar grip.

 

Nice, their quality's usually pretty good and they've got a local agent too.

 

800 lumens is about as much as you need for trail riding if the light lands in the right place. Time for some homework on beam shots...

[Edge_Design]

Just to clarify - Ryder/Extremelights/DX lights etc MIGHT come out of the same factory (I don't know this, but would guess they probably do), but Magicshine is not from the same factory as them. They do look basically identical in a lot of cases, but they are not the same lights at all. There also should not be any issue at all with the warranty backup on Magicshine's and, being an internationally recognised brand, there will always be support for them.

 

Back to the original topic - 4 year's is a pretty long lifetime for most li-ion batteries (try using a 4 year old laptop!) so why not just buy a new Magicshine battery for it which won't cost much at all (if it is a Magicshine light and not a copy)? If the LED still works and has given you enough light for 4 years then there doesn't seem to be much point in investing in a new lights for 20 or 30% more lighting power.

[GoLefty!!]

800 lumen is more than adequate. the himan eye will not distinguish the difference between a 800 lumen light and a 2000 lumen light.

With LED's the other issue is white out. The light coming LED's does not have much IR and hence it is perceived as cooler (in temperature). this results in less detail being visible since shadows are not as well defined.

Wide beam on the bars, spot on the helmet.

[Spinnekop]

Was it the Deca? For R1500 it looks like good value.

 

Jip. The Deca. Works 200% fine for early morning rides.

[Skylark]

If you're looking for a light for MTB use, the main thing to look for is a decent beam pattern. Most of these Chinese P.O.S lights take a million lumens and focus them onto one square millimetre of trail so they look super bright, but in actual riding conditions this is pretty useless.

 

The decent ones, Lupine being one, give a decent horizontal spread so that you can actually see what's going on around you, and without too much vertical spread which wastes power and annoys motorists on the way to the trail head.

 

Also, as mentioned, you'll only ever buy one. They are properly bombproof and ship with decent batteries. From an environmental point of view, lithium batteries are pretty nasty do dispose of, so the "I don't care if it only lasts 6 months" approach isn't going to help the next generation much either.

 

Check out the Lupine Tesla as a decent entry level light. A few extra bucks, but worth every cent.

 

Good point, you can buy replacement lenses for the magicshine lights on eBay that improve/modify the beam and can adjust the light colour if I remember correctly, I've heard they radically improve a lights use ability.

[droenn]

Nice, their quality's usually pretty good and they've got a local agent too.

 

800 lumens is about as much as you need for trail riding if the light lands in the right place. Time for some homework on beam shots...

 

Lumens seems to be a lot like Watts in the audio world. Measured in so many different ways and never really reflecting quality of the product.

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

Lumens seems to be a lot like Watts in the audio world. Measured in so many different ways and never really reflecting quality of the product.

 

thing is, majority of the time on these chinese lights (and some of the non chinese lights) the lumen figure is calculated as a theoretical max output if the LED's are driven at their max amperage. Which is generally 2 to 3 times higher than they are actually driven.

[Cranky]

I got the MJ 880 from Magicshine in SA. Great light, great price and service from Magicshine with delivery next day. Runs just over 2 hours on full power, which is incredibly bright. Can easily run it on 50-70 percent max and get much longer duration.

[Eddi]

800 lumen is more than adequate. the human eye will not distinguish the difference between a 800 lumen light and a 2000 lumen light.

 

Yep, ~800 Lumen is sufficient for nearly any type of riding.

 

But you will notice the difference between 800 & 2000 lumens:

https://community.bikehub.co.za/topic/126822-how-i-built-my-own-bike-light/#entry1947299

 

One of a couple reports on bad batteries:

http://forums.mtbr.com/lights-night-riding/exploding-battery-pack-cree-xm-lt6-led-bicycle-light-837382.html