Why no good bike lights in brick & morter?

[JohnR66]

I am able to buy Cree XR-E based flashlights from brick and morter stores for as low as $18. These lights are actually pretty good. However, I can't find any LED based bike head lights with even a plain old luxeon.

I think it would be great if some manufacturer would make a nice XR-E based light at a reasonable price.

That's all.

 

[Steve K]

It's a good question. Cateye seems to try, but their stuff is always a couple of years out of date. The only reason I can suggest is that the production volume for bike lights is much smaller than a general purpose flashlight, so the tooling costs and design costs are a larger proportion of the cost to develop. This makes the manufacturer not want to update designs very often.

As an electronics engineer developing sensors for trucks, bulldozers, wheel loaders, etc, I know that tooling for injection molded plastic housings can cost $50k or so (depending on the complexity). Cateye's lights have more parts than I'm dealing with, so I would think that their cost is higher.

It's still frustrating, though. I show friends my homemade lights with a few Cree 3 watt leds, and they would have to pay a couple hundred dollars for something equivalent.

Steve K.

 

[HEY HEY ITS HENDO]

I feel your pain John, but the vast majority of cyclists begrudge paying more than a couple of bucks for a set of blinkies even ...
.... ask them to pay $50+ HOWmuch? and they will laugh-in-your-face!! :laughing:
in the big picture, we are a minority

 

[cave dave]

Niterider and Dinotte are using Seoul P4's in their lights, this is a very good LED. These are high end units at over $100.

I have only seen one brick and Morter Cree. The 2C one at lowes at ~ $30. So they are pretty rare still.

If you look through this section lots of people are either modding an existing light or using LockBlock or another mount to mount a flashlight. I think the flashlight manufactures will always be well ahead in technology of the less expensive bicycle lights. I doub't I'll every buy a bicycle specific light again.

 

[Planterz]

Sadly, the technology is lagging for bike lights, and in the few cases where it's up to date, you have to pay through the nose for it. Cateye just came out with a new version of their Singleshot light. 1 single 1W LED. $80. There's a dual 1W LED version too, but I don't know what it costs (nor do I care-no way I would buy it). Light & Motion's Vega is 2 years old and hasn't been updated (LuxIII). There's a couple 1W LED lights out there, but they're still $40-60 for most of them, and regulation circuitry is likely nonexsistant or minimal at best. For a regulated, up-to-date LED bike light, expect a couple hundred bucks, easy.

It seems that we're paying mostly for the specialty niche of high-powered bike lights. Even though the technology isn't that expensive, adding specific mounts, clamps, and stuff like that adds to the cost, and adds to to the "specialty"-ness of the niche. Basically, either they need to charge "so much" more for these lights, or because it's such a specialized niche, they [/i]can[/i] charge so much. In fact, it's probably both, although I'm inclined to think it's a little more the latter than the former.

As for finding any in a small, B&M bike shop, well, that's going to be even harder. Every bike shop around me seems to carry the same same plethora low-end stuff, and then a few top-end HID lights. And nothing in between. The exceptions were a comparatively large independent shop, and a corporate chain shop (Performance).

The reason for this is simple: They're not going to stock stuff that isn't going to sell. Like HENDO said, the vast, vast majority of people won't spend that much for a light. Those that do will either get one on the internet, or have it special ordered. Otherwise, it'd just sit on the shelf for months collecting dust. Last week I was in 7 different bike shops looking for a 44T 4bolt chainring bash guard and carbon fiber bar-ends. No luck. The reason is simple. Nobody buys CF bar-ends as an impulse buy, so they don't stock them. And there's too many tooth and bolt patterns for chainring guards to have on-hand for the limited number of people who would ever buy one. Every place I went to said the same thing when I asked if they had one: No, but we can order it.

 

[msxtr]

Hi, look this

Greetings - Saludos

msxtr

 

[Offroad'Bent]

I got a light from NightLightning recently that has P4s and a Maxflex board.

 

[Szemhazai]

Yes, but he was writing about 30-40$ light not 200$

 

[RGB_LED]

A good thread and very accurate comments about the cost of bike lights... but, IMO, the cost of the setup depends on whether you are looking for a commuting or mtn-bike setup as I believe you need a better lighting kit for off-road.

For mtb biking, I have used a Fenix P3D which, when combined with the Twofishblocks, RCR123s and charger costs about $100 - I used two so the price goes up another $80 or so for the second light and batteries. My local camping store is selling a '10W LED' Night Hawk AL-X kit that runs on 4AA batteries for $79 (you supply batteries / charger). At 100% output, they say it runs for 9 hrs which is pretty good. They don't say what emitter it uses though nor do they have any lumen ratings and it seems that the mount is a bit old-school.

Everything else I see, Light & Motion, Lupine, Nighthawk is expensive. Even Dinotte - which my friends use and is probably one of the better lights for the money - are quite expensive.

There is a thread in CPF MP that I ran across today where LITEmania is selling a 200+ lumen LED setup called 'Scolo' that seems pretty good and with a decent priced. It's not $30-40 but I doubt that you can get a better setup for less - I've tried. The light is $45 + $5 or $6 for the handlebar mt for a total of $50-$55. The only issue is that you just have to purchase a 7.4v battery pack / charger for it which may add another $50-60 to the price of the kit.

Still, the Nitehawk Minewt that I saw - with similar lumen rating - is almost $200 so the Scolo is a deal, especially with two heads. I think this is why there are a lot of threads on mtbr where bikers are building their own lights.

 

[vkan]

I am able to buy Cree XR-E based flashlights from brick and morter stores for as low as $18. These lights are actually pretty good. However, I can't find any LED based bike head lights with even a plain old luxeon.
...

What brick and mortar stores are you looking at?

Every bike shop in my area (and not just the Performance or REI) has LED-based bike lights ranging from 1W Luxeon like the Cateyes or Nighthawks to Luxeon III (the L&M Vega, the Cateye 2 & 3 LED units, older Dinottes), and now the NiteRider Minewt X2.

Or were you thinking of brick and mortar non-bike-shop stores like Walmart?

 

[Nubo]

Not sure what you mean by Brick&Mortar, or even why it matters. There's a "Brick & Mortar" REI near me that carries the L & M "Stella", which is a very nice LED bike light -- and I gave 2 as Christmas presents. If you want even more bang, there are the Lupine Wilma and if you want to get ridiculous, the Betty. These are available online. So, unless you have a particular affinity for brick?.... :thinking:

There are several reasons why a suitable LED bike light will cost much more than a flashlight with the same emitter.

First of all, bike light tends to see much longer and much more frequent duty cycle. Heat needs to be managed very well. The best LED bike lights will step down power if needed to keep temps in range and preserve the life of the emitter.

Secondly, long duty cycle means bike light invariably needs to be rechargeable. And top-notch rechargeable, not just wall-wart which cooks your batteries in a few months.

Third, the system needs to be weather-proof and able to survive a rugged treatment while retaining full dependability.

 

[chalo]

I have only seen one brick and Morter Cree. The 2C one at lowes at ~ $30. So they are pretty rare still.

If you look through this section lots of people are either modding an existing light or using LockBlock or another mount to mount a flashlight.

DealExtreme sells a wide beam (headlight style) optic that purportedly fits the Task Force light:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1919

I have some on order. They might persuade me to buy Cyclopblocks and AA-to-C adapters toot sweet.

 

[Crenshaw]

just get a handlebar-mount and fit in a light that you already have. Much better bang for buck then you will get from cateye or anyone ill wager. My friend asked me if the P3D was brighter then the cateye 1watt light. sigh, how little they know...

Crenshaw