Light for bicycle

I'd like to ride my bike at night, and have seen a few headlights here in local stores but all seem kinda dim. There's LED and incandescant options but I haven't been overly impressed with anything I've seen so far.

My Surefire L4 seems brighter than them all... has anyone mounted one to a bike? How well does it work? Or is there something else I should look at?

Thanks.

Interested in this?

That's what I mean, though. That uses 5mm LEDs so it's what, 15 lumens maybe? The L4 is 65 lumens.

Hmm, don't really know hom many lumens exactly but here are some beam shots at 3 feet & 10 feet.

Frangible,
I use a BB500 R2H Frean LP minimag as a helmet light coupled with a 2D Mag mounted on the frame. The frame light uses a madmax+ regulator pushing the LED at over 800mA. Very, very long throw at works at speeds over 20MPH
Although they are not out yet, there is a decent light that would work for cycling. The Elektrolumens XM-3 is waterproof, runs a LuxeonIII LED at 600mA (2+ watts) has a reflector for a clean, long throw beam and uses 2AA batteries. It would be a good idea to use 2300mAH Sanyo (or Energizer) NiMH AA cells for 2 hours of run time.
The 1/4" thick walls (6mm+) will cool the LED down well no matter the temp. It will not put out the huge flood of the Surefire L4 but will throw farther with a narrower beam.
The XM-3 is going on pre-order for $40 with delivery in a month or so. I will be getting one for my wife's recumbent... the BB400 Q3L NX05 does not work well enough.

I use a the LED setting on my Twintask 2D, duck taped to my frame. It works pretty well and doenst kill batteries

there is a ~60 watt turbocat system on ebay right now.

brighter than most car headlights.

I think ElektroLumens had a custom bike light somewhere too.

I used two metal hose clamps to mount my L4 to my bike handlebars. Works great! Only caveat is it requires about 10 seconds to attach/remove.

But I have a Luxeon 5W @ 65 lumens with 2 PILA batteries giving me a lot of nice night for nearly free in terms of additional costs.

I used a Twofish mount for my L4 on the bike for quite some time. Works quite well, as long as you don't need to ride too fast in real dark. Ideal for any sort of urban situation. I wanted something more though, so I massaged an X200 into being my current light: http://www.darelldd.com/light/surefire_x200_bike.htm
This stomps the L4 for a bike light because of the Pelican Reflector mod and the LuxIII. Gives much better through while still allowing for some spill. Too expensive to ever do again though!

Turbodog -

I'm searching ebay for "turbocat" and coming up empty. Auction over?

Yeah Darell, that's the only drawback. It's not that focused of a beam so doesn't go that far ahead of you, so you can't go too fast with just the L4.

[ QUOTE ]
Frangible said:
I used two metal hose clamps to mount my L4 to my bike handlebars. Works great! Only caveat is it requires about 10 seconds to attach/remove.

But I have a Luxeon 5W @ 65 lumens with 2 PILA batteries giving me a lot of nice night for nearly free in terms of additional costs.

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Same mounting here, Pilas with L5.

Additional Cateye Solo II (retired model) 30W halogen for distance illumination (considering the Light & Motion ARC bike lamp these days)

[ QUOTE ]
Darell said:
Turbodog -

I'm searching ebay for "turbocat" and coming up empty. Auction over?

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah missed it

keep checking though

I recently put a two fish mount on my son's bike and it works great. But he is not allowed to strap my L4 on, he uses a SL 4AA LED.

Ah, found it. I actually posted this at the other bike light thread. Not sure if ElektroLumens still makes this so best to check with him directly. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif



Custom-made bike light by Elektrolumens using a FT-3C head, 3AA battery pack, 3800 lux at 1 meter & nice sidespill.