OneBigDay
Enlightened
I did some beamshots of these two bike lights as an exercise and thought I would share the results and some thoughts. I am not tied to Cygolite in any way, they just happened to be decent lights at a reasonable price point.
I know there are a lot of do it yourselfers here in the bicycle forums. I don't currently have the time or the expertise to be building my own headlight kits. I would probably like doing this very much, but it just doesn't fit right now. So I was in search of something off the shelf.
I rode with the Cygolite MityCross 350 all last year (2009) and was very pleased with it. I have learned a ton about LED's in the last year and wanted to do an upgrade for this years riding season. I didn't "need" an upgrade, but was very curious about what options were available. Once my "maybe I should upgrade" voice started kicking in, I convinced myself to look around and see what I would buy if price were not an issue.
There were a couple other lights I considered. The Seca 900 & Lupine Wilma were really tempting for different reasons, but ultimately even where money is no object these are priced way too high for what they are. I'm sure somebody could make a case otherwise, but these systems seem excessively priced. For my needs and the TridenX going for about $250 (USD), I just could not justify spending $600+ (USD) for the Seca/Lupine lights. On the other end of the price spectrum I wanted to buy quality and avoided being tempted by any DX gear for this reason. The MagicShine lights are interesting, but not sure what the quality level is on those. Also I like the smaller footprint of something that uses optics rather than a reflector. That being said I would buy a reflector based light under the right circumstances.
One thing I noticed when looking around is that most of the super high powered lights put way too much light "forward". The Lupine Betty is an extreme example of this. Too many LEDs in too small of a space, all pointed in basically the same direction. The Seca lights seem to have addressed this somewhat claiming their superior beam pattern and optics. However I am skeptical of this since they are using XRE R2 emitters. To me when I hear XRE I think "laser pointer", which is not what I want on my bike. A year from now we'll probably have a dozen good choices for XP-G based bike lights, but right now the pickins are slim in that dept.
At the end of the day I went with what I perceived as the sweet spot, much like with new computer hardware. The cutting edge systems are way overpriced and you pay if you want it, but something only a year or so old is written off as as old news when it works excellent and the price has come down to something more reasonable.
For my 2010 upgrade I ended up picking up the CygoLite TridenX rated at 600 lumens by the manufacturer. This is a 3 LED (Seoul P4 I think) system with a 7.6 volt battery pack. Very lightweight with a small footprint on the bike.
I'll have to ride for the season to give some real experience, but initial impressions are that the TridenX does pretty much what I expected. The light output on the TridenX 600 is noticably more than the MityCross 350. However, I still say the MityCross 350 has plenty of light to ride in total darkness (offroad), and the TridenX can give me more light if I need it, or a little more runtime. The difference in light output is noticable but not huge. There are some UI features that I like better immediately on the TridenX - I can go either up or down in brightness, and there is a visible level indicator as to what brightness setting I am at - both of these are nice touches. There is also one extra brightness level on the TridenX than on the MityCross. For the quality, output, and features of the TridenX, it is a good value IMO.
Doing these beamshots was a good experience and may be my next set will be better, but let the pictures speak for themselves. Hopefully this is helpful to someone.
TridenX 600 in a nearby park.
The mighty Mississippi beyond the fence on the left, some ambient light a couple hundred feet to the right.
MityCross 350 on high VS. TridenX 600 on high
MityCross 350 all levels
Not much ambeint light at this location.
TridenX at the same location
MityCross 350 high vs. TridenX high
High Power comparison, both lights, both locations
I know there are a lot of do it yourselfers here in the bicycle forums. I don't currently have the time or the expertise to be building my own headlight kits. I would probably like doing this very much, but it just doesn't fit right now. So I was in search of something off the shelf.
I rode with the Cygolite MityCross 350 all last year (2009) and was very pleased with it. I have learned a ton about LED's in the last year and wanted to do an upgrade for this years riding season. I didn't "need" an upgrade, but was very curious about what options were available. Once my "maybe I should upgrade" voice started kicking in, I convinced myself to look around and see what I would buy if price were not an issue.
There were a couple other lights I considered. The Seca 900 & Lupine Wilma were really tempting for different reasons, but ultimately even where money is no object these are priced way too high for what they are. I'm sure somebody could make a case otherwise, but these systems seem excessively priced. For my needs and the TridenX going for about $250 (USD), I just could not justify spending $600+ (USD) for the Seca/Lupine lights. On the other end of the price spectrum I wanted to buy quality and avoided being tempted by any DX gear for this reason. The MagicShine lights are interesting, but not sure what the quality level is on those. Also I like the smaller footprint of something that uses optics rather than a reflector. That being said I would buy a reflector based light under the right circumstances.
One thing I noticed when looking around is that most of the super high powered lights put way too much light "forward". The Lupine Betty is an extreme example of this. Too many LEDs in too small of a space, all pointed in basically the same direction. The Seca lights seem to have addressed this somewhat claiming their superior beam pattern and optics. However I am skeptical of this since they are using XRE R2 emitters. To me when I hear XRE I think "laser pointer", which is not what I want on my bike. A year from now we'll probably have a dozen good choices for XP-G based bike lights, but right now the pickins are slim in that dept.
At the end of the day I went with what I perceived as the sweet spot, much like with new computer hardware. The cutting edge systems are way overpriced and you pay if you want it, but something only a year or so old is written off as as old news when it works excellent and the price has come down to something more reasonable.
For my 2010 upgrade I ended up picking up the CygoLite TridenX rated at 600 lumens by the manufacturer. This is a 3 LED (Seoul P4 I think) system with a 7.6 volt battery pack. Very lightweight with a small footprint on the bike.
I'll have to ride for the season to give some real experience, but initial impressions are that the TridenX does pretty much what I expected. The light output on the TridenX 600 is noticably more than the MityCross 350. However, I still say the MityCross 350 has plenty of light to ride in total darkness (offroad), and the TridenX can give me more light if I need it, or a little more runtime. The difference in light output is noticable but not huge. There are some UI features that I like better immediately on the TridenX - I can go either up or down in brightness, and there is a visible level indicator as to what brightness setting I am at - both of these are nice touches. There is also one extra brightness level on the TridenX than on the MityCross. For the quality, output, and features of the TridenX, it is a good value IMO.
Doing these beamshots was a good experience and may be my next set will be better, but let the pictures speak for themselves. Hopefully this is helpful to someone.
TridenX 600 in a nearby park.
The mighty Mississippi beyond the fence on the left, some ambient light a couple hundred feet to the right.
MityCross 350 on high VS. TridenX 600 on high
MityCross 350 all levels
Not much ambeint light at this location.
TridenX at the same location
MityCross 350 high vs. TridenX high
High Power comparison, both lights, both locations
that I would like to do similar beamshot comparisons with. Of course never say never on upgrading something!
