Mountain Bike Lights

I just joined this site and hope that someone can give me some advice. I am an amateur Adventure Racer which involves paddling, mountain biking, climbing, and trekking. Most races involve navigation/orienteering and many last longer than 12 hours, some up to a week. The race does not stop for darkness. This puts a heavy advantage to the teams with the best lights. I currently use a Cygolite with 20 watts of incadecent bulbs and 6 volt lead-acid battery with 10 Ah. These are very heavy but cheap. Many better teams use NiteRider light systems that use halogen bulbs and NiCad batteries. These systems are typically 4 times the price ($400+). With all the new developments in LED's, I'm hoping that I could leap frog these systems with something that will be brighter but last all night. Any idea's? None of the manufacturers seem to provide a measure of brightness to compare different brands. How do I compare 20 watt bulbs to LED or Halogen?

Thanks for any help, Tom

Tom
See a similar thread in "General Light Discussion" - Best Bike lights. In short: If you want LIGHT - go HID, if the terrain is such that you are forced to go very slow - uphill etc, LED 3W+ will work. I have both - a 10W NiteRider HID and a 3W LED headlamp/bikelight. Both can use the same battery. Nothing commecially available that is cheap, light and gives enough light... If you have "cat eyes", a few commercial LED lights exist that you can use as headlamp and bike light. The batteries, if you go Li-On, are very light - so light that you can fit the complete light head and battery on a mtb helmet. But expensive! It is for you to decide what you are going to spend. Think like this - if you miss a vital path in a race and crash - the expenses incurred and lost in that race combined with possible injuries - would that have justified an expensive light?
Cheers

There are many ways to approach this.

First, your existing setup. 20w is a LOT of light. I know, I do 24hr mtb bike races and I use 38w of light myself (2 19w bulbs). It's really too much light most of the time. The only time that much is really needed is when I'm going downhill at HIGH speeds. I think you could work just fine with less. This will save: weight/complexity/cost. Your setup runs 3 hours max, right? You've got a 60 watt hour battery and a 20 watt light. That's pretty short for an all-nighter.

Since you're on a bike/canoe/foot we've got light mounting challenges also. I'm gonna throw some suggestions out here and make some assumptions. I can revise later if needed.

Assuming you don't want to use multiple lights or can't use them or can't afford more than one I'm gonna build a scenario around just one light. I'm also gonna use a headlight. They are versatile, hands-free, shine where you look, and no mounting brackets are required.

Existing stuff on the market in the traditional headlamp arena tops out at about 5 watt of power. This is talking about petzl/princeton tec/etc. I would like to see you using about a 10watt bulb in a a spot beam configuration.

Ok, I'm just gonna come out and say it. Turbocat. These guys make the best bike lights on the planet (sorry, niterider/etc but it's true). They make a helmet-mounted light that is available with an optional strap for mounting on your head, not a helmet. This light has bulbs available in the following sizes: 5w spot, 10w spot, 10w flood, 15w spot, 15w flood. They run the bulbs in an overvoltage setup so expect to get about 12w out of the 10 and 19 out of the 15 and 6 out of the 5.

The main problem here is NOT the light, but the battery pack. Even with a 10w bulb, their largest battery pack will run about 3 hours straight. FYI, their pack is a LOT lighter than your 6v lead-acid battery.

Their stock battery pack is made up of 5 "D" size nicd cells. My complaint with this pack is that if they used 5 "D" size nimh cells, the runtime would over double because the stock battery pack cells are 4400mAh in size. It is pretty easy to find 8000mAh "D" nimh cells, and some 11000mAh cells are around if you look hard enough. If you custom-assembled a pack from 11000 cells, you could get about 6.5 hours of runtime out of a 10w bulb. That *should* be enough to get you through most any night.

The cost of this setup is roughly as follows:
Head light $115 (includes overnight charger)
Conversion strap $20
5 11000mAh nimh "D" cells $9 each, $45 total
custom battery assembly $10-15 at local battery shop
total $180

This is an EXTREMELY good price for a light setup of this quality and endurance. Turbocat also includes a "crash-warranty" on their stuff. If you break it (yeah, right) they'll fix it for parts cost plus about $10. You can read the (rave) reviews on their head-mounted light here http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/Lights/product_22232.shtml

If you're gonna use this setup, I would order it with BOTH the 5w and 10w bulb. Start with the 5w. If it's enough for you, your run times just doubled to 12+ hours. Heck, I would order a spare bulb anyway. These things are tough, but you never know when one's gonna blow. For what it's worth, I have had my set for about 5 years now. I am still on the original bulbs.

If you need MORE than 12 hours of light, get ready to carry an extra battery. Or, carry a small light for use when the big boy isn't needed. The uk 4aa eled light is TOUGH and will run for 15 hours on 4 aa LITHIUM cells. I think it also floats with lithium cells installed.

If you need more info, let me know.

Too bad you don't live in the uk - if I had the cash I'd give these guys a call...

www.solidlights.co.uk

Have you approached some of the machine shop savvy guys here about a little 'commission'? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Another idea would be to use a surefire L4 light with some sort of head-mount (assuming you don't want to have to hold the light the entire time). It will run for about 75 minutes (on high) on a set of batteries. The batteries are small and lightweight so you could carry spares. If you had a 2-stage tailswitch for low and high brightness the light could last a LOT longer. It's waterproof to a few feet, nothing much more than that though.

The light can be had for about $140 if you shop around. Batteries will run you $1 each (mailorder). The light takes two at a time.

This is a much lighter weight solution and ANYTHING you're gonna find elsewhere. It's not the cheapest, but you also get a really nice flashlight out of the deal to use elsewhere.

I use my g2 on my bike in addition to the normal bike light. We are legally required to have a set of british standard approved lights on a bike, but you can fit anything else you like as well. So I have front/rear cateye led BS lights on all the time, and flick on whatever I decide to mount alongside when needed. G2, badboy etc. Although I guess none of these is enough to do serious off road trails! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

There's a new light comparison at MTBR.com, dated January 20, 2005: MTBR Shine-Off. They compared lights from Lupine, Topeak, Light & Motion, Lume, NightPro, NightRider, BLT, JET, and TurboCat. The Lupine Edison 10 looks like the one to get! (If you have $$$ /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif.)

I use a Cateye EL 300, works fine.

Too bad they didn't have the Light & Motion Vega for that MTBR shootout. It uses a Lux III, so would be interesting to see how it compares - though it won't hold a candle to a HID system.

See the discussions in Electrolumens little home.
He has three, four, and six 3 watt leds in various conditions. All can be convertred to and some are offered as bike lights.

Or... you could build you own light(s). Someone posted this link sometime back and I can't remember who (sorry, and credit goes to whoever posted this link...) http://www.trappersplace.com/maglite/index.htm

Might be a tad big, but still seems like it might be pretty light? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

an excellent resource for bicycle lighting discussions:

http://lists.topica.com/lists/bikecurrent/

lumicycle seem to be highly praised by the mags I read. I think it's what killian (a guy I know) used when he dide adventure racing (team kona).They have some add on for street use where you don't blind drivers IIRC as well

You maight be able to buy the light without a battery pack and build your own that has a runtime you need