Part one of a quick round up of what lights we’ve been using this year.
It’s getting dark out there. Darker still in the woods. But lack of sunbeams shouldn’t put you off riding your bicycle. Invest in a set of lights and you can ride all Winter on your favourite trails.
We’ve got a local group of midweek warriors here at DirtHQ who go out a couple of times a week for a night time spin. The riding we do here is mainly two to three minute downhills with 30 to 40 minute climbs and usually only go out for about three hours. We reckon you need at least 1000 lumens on your bars and at 1000 lumens on your lid for best results.
Here’s what a couple of the local warriors have been running this year:
Ay Up
$420.00 AUD
Approx £269.81 GBP
Words: Nobby
I’ve been using these for a year now in all conditions and temperatures and they really are a “buy, fit and forget” set of lights. I use exactly the same set up on the helmet as on the bars (battery and all) which speaks wonders for the lightweight overall design. Everything that I have needed is included in the pack, even a larger battery but with the typical “Wednesday nighter” rarely more than 3 hours the regular battery packs have been perfect. In fact I rarely take them off even on a daytime trip into the woods. I love the individual adjustment on each light meaning you can fine tune exactly where you need to see – but on the flip side it may take a few minutes to get them set up just right for you.
Conclusion :- Beautifully engineered, bright, lightweight lights in a comprehensive kit that should last for many years – highly recommended.
Cree XM-L Lights from Deal Extreme
€38.00
900-1200 Lumen
www.dealextreme.com
Words: Jeffsey
If you’re like me and have a very small budget to spent on lights but really want to carry on riding through the winter, you won’t go far wrong blowing your cash on the Cree XM-L.
It’s supplied with all the usual stuff: handle bar and helmet mounts and it is very robust and waterproof light. The manufactures say it pushes out around 1200 lumens, but seeing some of the other top quality lights out there I would say more like 900 to 1000 which still lights up the trails giving you good visibility with a combination of spot and flood beam pattern.
It’s quick and easy to attach with a choice of two sizes of O-ring supplied and the battery which fits snugly to the frame. It’s also easy to switch on and off by way of the tail cap on the back of the light unit giving you three modes Hi, Mid and Strobe.
The li-ion battery takes about 4-5 hours to charge which gives me about 3 hours of ride time on Hi and forever on the Mid setting which is ideal for riding home from the pub.
I’ve been running this light for the last couple of years and it’s taken a fair hammering but as yet I haven’t had any major issue with it so far. So if you’re looking for a cheap alternative you can’t go far wrong with this one.
Homemade Lights.
Words: Ian
The idea to build these lights happened about 5/6 years ago.
My old halogen lights did not seem bright enough and they had a heavy lead acid battery that weighed the same a as small child and lasted approx 1hr. At the time LED lights had just started to be produced by Exposure and Hope etc. However the were very expensive, the other alternative High-intensity discharge (HID) lights were just as expensive as LEDs and also had fragile and expensive bulbs.
After some digging around on the Internet I found some info on how to order and build yourself some LED lights. We basically copied someone else’s design in terms of aluminium housing and heat sinking the LEDs. As the parts (i.e. LEDs Cree R2s, drivers and LED lenses) had to come from Australia two other friends (Steve and Cpt Hardcore) also joined in to share postage costs and to help build the lights.
I built one helmet light and one bar light. The bar light uses a Lumnicycle mount, and a simple waterproof on/off switch whilst the helmet light attaches with Velcro and uses a dial (variable resistor) to alter the brightness. This saves having to go through multiple modes (low, med/high/strobe etc.). I don’t know why more manufactures do this.
We soldered up the LEDs to the drivers and switches, used thermal paste to glue the LEDs to a heat sink inside the housing. Each light has 2 LEDs. I can swap over the lenses to have either flood, spot or a mixture of both.
The theoretical Lumen rating for a single CREE XPE R2 LED is about 250. So each light (i.e. 2 LEDs) has approx 500 lumens. So having 1000 lumens 5 or 6 years ago that was pretty good.
In total each light cost approx £40. This was far cheaper than the equivalent LED lights you could buy at the time, but had lower spec/older LEDs in.
The lights still work well now and will be used again this winter. If I was doing this again, I would do like a lot of people and buy some fairly cheap lights from China, but it was a good project to do and it was a proud moment the first time we switched the lights and they did not catch fire.
Exposure MaXx-D and Gemini Xera.
Exposure MaXx-D 960 lumens www.exposurelights.com
Gemini Xera 800 lumen £129.00 www.i-ride.co.uk/gemini_lights
Words: Barry
I’ve been running the 960 lumen MaXx D Exposure lamp on the bars for a few years. They were a bit pricey £300 ish I think. But they give a good beam pattern and I love the simplicity of the stand alone unit, ie no remote battery, and at 295g not too heavy either. An easy quick release clamp secures the light to the bar, good if you need to unclip it and have a shine about the woods for bears and stuff. Three beam modes which you cycle through with a water proof switch on the back. 3 hours on full beam is plenty, I only use that for the descents and switch to mid or low for the climbs. Also being a British company the back up service is great. I once zapped it with the jetwasher good and proper, sent it back to the lads at Exposure and they had it fixed and returned in a day or two.
Had this Gemini Lights Xera lamp for about a year now and it’s quite a neat compact unit. Two cell battery and lamp weigh 185g so not too hefty sat on top of your lid. 4 modes, which is sometimes a faff clicking through, I really just need Hi for descending and Lo for climbing/tracking along. Comes with all the usually rubber o-ring mounts, though the helmet mount sits too high for me so I prefer to gaffer tape it on to keep it out of the way of low hanging branches, though that does make aiming it a bit hit and hiss. 800 lumens is okay when I’m out on my own but with the Wednesday crew hurtling down the trail behind me I can get out shone. But all in all I do like the miniature nature of this lamp.
