Did your bicycling hobby make you a flashaholic?

Just something I thougt of while reading some posts. Since a kid I was always into flashlights. It was fun on the farm in quality darkness.

But I would have to say, my bike riding hobby and flashlights go very well as a team, always looking for the best EDC and bike light, modding and making my own homemade bike lights. It is what had me find this forum and fuels my addiction. Anyone else?

Being in a shooting made me into one.

I'm not a flashlight hollic (yet) but my bike lights are a bit that way (though I need to play with overdriving the bulbs now). I do like having a good back up EDC that I can strap to the helmet incase of issues with my main lights

I became one when I was with the boy cubs when I was a kid,
We used to do a lot of night activities, also got into Ham radio

AndrewL said:

I'm not a flashlight hollic (yet) but my bike lights are a bit that way (though I need to play with overdriving the bulbs now). I do like having a good back up EDC that I can strap to the helmet incase of issues with my main lights

Click to expand...

I'm really sorry to break the news, but you already are a full-fledged flashaholic. Here's the evidence, from you own post:

1. You like overdriving bulbs
2. You have a backup EDC
3. You already have "main lights"
4. You have more than 1 post on CPF

Denial is futile. Resistance is futile. :laughing:


Bicycling didn't make me a flashaholic, but now that I bike at night, my flashaholism has been... err... "enhanced"

I used LEDs as indicator lamps in electronics projects for many years. But, I didn't buy my first LED lights until I needed lighting for my recumbent bicycle. Since then, it's been LEDs all the way.

In short, yes! I used to ride my bike between 7 and 15 miles every night, sometimes on a dark road without lights and that wound down hill. I was using the 99 cent bike headlights, or the $10 ones from Wal-Mart (not much better). I thought about how useless those lights were on those particular roads and about how I'd never be able to see a big log or rock in the middle of the road traveling at 25mph, so I decided to get me a decent headlight. I got a Planet Bike 15w Insight. It really blew me away. Back then, I wondered why they didn't make flashlights that bright. That was a little over 3 years ago. Then I got my first bright light. I actually can't remember which it was, either a Streamight Scorpion, or a Nuwai 5w LED, I think it was the Nuwai, but ever since then I've been hooked. Actually, I was hooked when I got the bike light--I used to marvel at it's awesome beam, and I loved to show it off. Ever since I got the first two flashlights, I would tell myself that I wasn't going to buy any more, that I was satisfied, but maybe, just maybe, I might purchase 1 more really bright light....


Ok, so I was wrong.

When I bought my recumbent back in Feb 1999, I put two red LED flashers on the back and liked their durability. Not exactly bright enough but they worked. In Dec 1999, I picked up an "electronic flare" or a big 18 LED flasher and strapped it to the rack on my recumbent. That thing was BRIGHT and worked very well although it broke in a few years. It was complimented by a 10W NiCad helmet light and worked OK until one night in late 2001 while riding some backroads in Korea.

I was cruising along at around 18 MPH (30KPH) on dark curvey roads riding through rice fields. These roads were elevated above the fields about 9 to 10 feet (3 meters) and I was a minute ahead of my buddy on his mountain bike. The bulb blew and I was plunged into darkness. Slammed on the brakes and continued to lean into the curve I remembered I was on. Stopped about a meter from the edge of the road and waited for my buddy. He was running a 2C light that put out about 3 watts so we slowly cruised home.

After getting home, I remember wishing there was white LED lights that had enough power to see in pure darkness or for other cars to see me. Purchased a Pelican L1 and Streamlight Batonlite in the spring of 2002 and noted the Batonlight was not the hot setup to see anything but cars could see me. Still used my helmet light but kept the Batonlite going for secondary lighting.

Went back to the Texas in the summer of 2002 and continued the research into lights. Found the LED Museum and read about 14 white LED lights and upcoming Luxeon lights. Stumbled across CPF from a link and lurked for a month or so until joining. Purchased a BB500 minimag mod from Wayne in Nov 2002, modified my helmet light to hold a minimag BB500 Luxeon light. Went to Iraq in Feb 2003 and brought the BB500 with me. The perfect light for playing in the sandbox and EDCing a light became natural. Settled on a BB500 R2H Fraen LP minimag as a helmet light in August 2003 and built a madmax+ WO R2H 2D Mag as a frame light. The combination worked well for winter use but I used only the BB500 R2H in the summer months.

Still searching for a helmet light that was smaller/lighter/waterproof over the minimag mod and found it this month... Fenix L1P is now my helmet mounted light running NiMH AA's for spotting drivers and seeing things on the sides of the road. Presently building a frame mount for the BB500 R2H Fraen LP minimag mounted low on my frame. The perfect square of light illuminates the street and is enough light for cruising along at 16 MPH (25KPH) in darkness. The slightly bluish color is very noticable to cars and cuts through the yellow street light coloring.

For street riding, the combination works very well. It is light weight, runs for over 2 hours on 3 NiMH batteries, two lights that are very noticable to drivers, built in back-up and no bulbs to blow! Cateye 10 LED rear flasher runs 2 lithium AA cells, another backup 5 LED flasher and a third Planet Bike 3 red LED helmet auto-leveling flasher on a single AAA battery completes my LED lighting system. Generally, I only run the two flashers but if I ride someone else's bike, my helmet has L1P lighting for the front, rear LED flasher on the back and a rearview mirror built in. My buddies get a kick out of my fully lighted helmet with the mirror...

My families bikes use Aurora 2AA "1.5W" Jupiter LED lights that have a very bluish tinted round light beam. Very distrubing when viewed from the front and cars get out of the way. Running NiMH batteries they get around 3.5 hours of runtime and rear LED flashers complete the combination. Eventually, they want Fenix L1P lights for their bicycles... they prefer the smaller size.

In a few years, the BB500 R2H Fraen LP will be retired for another 2AA NiMH light. My hope is for something driven at 1.5 watts that puts out 150 lumens and a Fenix L1P that puts out 75 lumens. For amusement, I installed my 150 lumen WX1S LuxeonV 8AA "2D" Mag on my frame and it worked great! Very large and heavy but it worked well. My problem is after all the work I put in the light, I am afraid the vibration would eventually destroy it.

LED rear flashers reliability pushed me into white LED lighting mods and CPF. It has cost me some serious money along the way but as LED technology continues to get brighter, my bike lights get brighter and I ride in the dark much more than with bulbs. Maintaining lighting on three recumbents, a chopper and an electric scooter is much easier when they are all LEDs and run on NiMH AA cells.

Living in SoCal, I hate riding my Cannondale during the day. Usually just too hot! Therefore, night riding is the only option for me. That leads to needing a bright light. A HID light from Lume was the solution. For some reason drivers have more respect for bicycle with bright lights.

Strangely enough, i was thinking this exact thing on the drive home from getting snow tires put on my car*.....

i was thinking "how did i first find CPF? oh yeah, it was back when i started doing research for night riding, i discovered the mysterious and desirable "Luxeon" LED, thought it was cool that a 1 watt LED could crank out so much light, at this point i learned that the advantages of LED's were nigh-indestructability and long battery life, just what i needed for a bike light, but at the time i was too stingy to buy a Luxeon bike light (Planet Bike 1-watt was available at my LBS, but i thought it was "too expensive"), so i did the next best thing and got the Blackburn Quadrant/Mars 3.0 combo kit, the Mars 3.0 was a great first rear blinkie, so i went a few days later and bought a second one....

i think this is where my flashaholism started, but it was currently undiagnosed.....

i then went thru various stages of *must...find....brighter....rear....blinkie!*, and added on a VistaLite large red Safety Light/reflector thingy, set to "Cylon" mode, still unsatisfied, i upgraded to a pair of Trek Disco Infernos (visible for up to a mile), but they were *extremely* directional, so i had each one angled slightly differently, overall i was happy with the Treks

i then discovered the Quadrant front LED was absolutely craptacular as a primary riding light (see with), but was an *exceptional* "beeing seen" front blinkie....

at this time, night rides were getting addictive, so i splurged on a CygoLite Night-Rover NIMH 13.5 watt Halogen lighting system....NOW we're talking, nice, bright light, perfect for road rides, and it just so happened a week later i found a Cygo "Metro" for dirt-cheap at another LBS (the Metro uses the same halogen head as the Rover, it just uses 6 standard D-cells for power), so i slapped that light on the other side of the handlebars, from the front, i have 2 CygoLite halogens as my "see with" light, and the Blackburn Quadrant as the "being seen" blinkie

.....then i discovered the LBS i got the Meto at had got in the CatEye TLD-1000 10 LED rear blinkies, so i grabbed a pair of them.....

okay, at this point, i began to realize something was up..... again undiagnosed, i found a thread on one of my bike forums (either MTBR or Bikeforums.net) about the "ultimate geekiness" bike with all the homebrew lights, and there was a link somewhere there that led to CPF, i looked around a bit and left, still not knowing my "illness" had a name....

a few months go by, the bike gets ridden less, i stop into the Discovery Channel store to look around, i see the Inova X0, try it out.....Belgium! that's a frelling bright light... hmm, Luxeon, where have i heard that name before....

anyway, long story short, i bought the X0, did some Google searches to see how it reviewed, found this forum, and the rest is history....

....yes, Inova X0, you were my gateway light into this addiction, i lay all the blame at Emissive Energy Corp.'s feet.....






* of course, now that i have snow tires on my car, it won't snow.... i can fix that though <goes outside and yells at the top of his lungs> "I'm taking my snow tires off, you hear me, Mother Nature, i'm taking off the snows!"

...there, now it should snow....

<edit>
...and it is now snowing, Yaaay!
....admittedly it's just a flurry, but still, better than no snow....

My old Nikon that uses CR123 batteries is what got me here.

Biking at night jumped started my 'problem'. Now that I use an HID, I can no longer use any other type of light.

While biking with a light did not make me a flashaholic, I remember, when I was a kid, very much enjoying riding at night with my generator light.

Actually my bike lights are a seperate collection from the flashlights. Up until recently there wasn't much new and i never did get HID fever what with the lights costing $400 or so. I still manage to acquire 4 nightrider systems and a nightsun though in the last 10 yrs.

I think it was actually camping that brought me to CPF. I was looking for a 4 yellow LED 2AA light for middle of the night trips.

If you get into caving you can start all over again with a headlamp collection!

-Dave J

firearms made me a flashaholic and flashlights made me a bikeaholic.

About a month ago a bought a mid-grade mountain bike for commuting to and from work. Since I clock out after midnight on most nights I ride in the darkness on the way home and figured I would have the lighting situaiton covered. I used a longbow micra + pentagong X3 for the first week I rode until I upgraded to a NiMH Cygolite Nitro 300. After work I usually ride till about 5 in the morning and have made it a habit that when I hear the birds start chirping I head home. I'm up to around 80 miles a week so far and enjoy every mile.

Now that you mention it, I suppose there was a latent flashaholic in me from my days--and nights--cycling between home and work from 1978 through 1981. In the classified pages of Bicycling!, some inventor was advertising a pair of 2-inch halogen sealed beam headlights (12W and 18W) and a 750,000 candlepower white strobe, all powered by a 5.5-lb, 60-watt-hour lead-acid battery.

I bought that lighting system and enjoyed the safety and peace of mind it brought to my pre-dawn and twilight commute. Those lights were a good 15 years ahead of its time.

In the late 90s, I bought top-end dual-headlight setups for my daughters' bikes, together with Nightrider 's best rechargeable LED taillight.

Both experiences primed me to get into flashlights.

My knives got me into flashlights.



Blades

Yes biking did have it's hand in this new addiction. I also remember being a cheapskate and wanting to find a way to use my Maglight instead of having to buy my first bike light and I found that contraption called the Cyclops (lockblocks that mount on the handlebars to hold a small 2AA type flashlight). From there I bought a few Cateyes and thats right about the time I discovered headlamps, and then fast forward a few years and I am here.

Now I find myself in the darkness more to use all my wonderful lights.