Helmet Light
- Thread starter canadmos
- Start date
I use a Niterider Lumina. I ride it on low setting which has a 6 hour run time. I can maintain 6-7 mph averages with that set up. They sell a strap on helmet mount that I installed when I bought the light and it has lived there ever since. I've had the same light for a few years and no issues. Mini usb rechargeable is the bee's knees. It takes a while to charge though and after a few years I have to put side tension on the charger for it to charge.
Remote battery or all in one?
Define budget friendly - we are talking foot cycle shit here...
I have a pair of Gloworm Alpha's in neutral white that I really like. (remote battery)
Wide on bars, spot on helmet.
They were 129.00 US each a couple years ago.
Edit - 1200 lumen, two cell battery pack, good for about 2 hrs on high in my experience
Define budget friendly - we are talking foot cycle shit here...
I have a pair of Gloworm Alpha's in neutral white that I really like. (remote battery)
Wide on bars, spot on helmet.
They were 129.00 US each a couple years ago.
Edit - 1200 lumen, two cell battery pack, good for about 2 hrs on high in my experience
Budget, less than $150 I guess.
I currently have a Cygolite 800, which has the lamp and separate battery - both strapped to the helmet. Almost always have a backpack, so I guess not too concerned about a remote battery if it came to that. I think I'd opt for all in one though.
When I am out JRA, I only run the helmet light on low setting. During 24hr races with my friends it's a bar light and helmet light blasting high. Going from the solo helmet light on low to the two 1200s on high is like riding during the day and much ass can be hauled. It's fun times.
I have a Glowworm, it's pretty damn good, super lightweight, but requires an external pack battery pack. On my bars I run a Niterider Lumina 1200, which I like, but the lack of an OEM Go-Pro style mount is stupid, I bought a K-edge mount for it and have it hung under my Garmin.
If I were buying today, I'd probably go with Olight/Magicshine. I had a magicshine previously and liked it a lot, only upgraded due to the failing batteries and it being generally fucked up from years of use, and carry an Olight daily. https://www.olightstore.com/bike-lights.html
Edit, just saw that you have an A1. Before buying anything, look at light/camera mounting options for the A1. I love my A1, but wasn't happy with any of the options, and the peak meant I couldn't use a sticky mount, ended up buying a Bell Sixxer.
If I were buying today, I'd probably go with Olight/Magicshine. I had a magicshine previously and liked it a lot, only upgraded due to the failing batteries and it being generally fucked up from years of use, and carry an Olight daily. https://www.olightstore.com/bike-lights.html
Edit, just saw that you have an A1. Before buying anything, look at light/camera mounting options for the A1. I love my A1, but wasn't happy with any of the options, and the peak meant I couldn't use a sticky mount, ended up buying a Bell Sixxer.
I've had Lupine lights for several years. They are not cheap but have been super reliable for me. A bluetooth remote for your helmet light is a really nice feature if you can spring for it.
More recently, I've heard really good reviews about Outbound lights: Shop All Products – Outbound Lighting
No personal experience but a few friends really dig them.
More recently, I've heard really good reviews about Outbound lights: Shop All Products – Outbound Lighting
No personal experience but a few friends really dig them.
Olights look nice. Hmmmm
And yeah the A1 with its ridge going right up the middle sucks for mounting anything. I have this helmet just for night riding so gotta make it work haha. The mount I use right now is a velcro strap with some extra sticky 3m foam stuff on the mount part, which seems to work, but had to really crank down on the velcro.
@OGRipper oh yeah forgot about the Outbound helmet light. It looks super nice, just wish it had a tiny bit longer run time...
IME, the faster you go, the more light you need. You may be able to tool around slow with 500 lumens, we can in the snow here, but that's bare minimum with the reflective snow surface. Min for getting aggressive, snow or not, is more like 1000 on bar and helmet. Helmet is always the tricky one, that's where you want the most light, you want the helmet spot to out-shine the handle-bar flood, but being on the helmet, it's kind of limited. I'll run an extension cord and tape it to my helmet at times, with my bright not-self-contained light up top. This is really the catch 22 with lights, self contained is convenient, but helmet is where you want you max power/primary light. Some of the new stuff with remotes is real fantastic, I have a glow-worm and it works awesome. For shorter rides, self-contained is fine.
Besides all that, buy as many lumens as you can afford. The stuff with the remote is so nice because you can turn up the light as you go downhill on the fast stuff, turn it way down on the slow climbs, maximize burn time AND illumination.
Besides all that, buy as many lumens as you can afford. The stuff with the remote is so nice because you can turn up the light as you go downhill on the fast stuff, turn it way down on the slow climbs, maximize burn time AND illumination.
Thats one "problem" of living here, you're constantly doing the yo-yo of going up and down and up and down. There are only a few spots where you're going up long enough to justify turning down the brightness. Generally speaking our lights are on full bright all the time. Which is why run time at one of the high outputs is a requirement.
On the snow I find we can get away with a lot less light, especially if its a clear night and the moon is out. I usually ditch the helmet light for most fat bike rides, you're going to slow and everything is bright enough as it is.
Always hated the loss of shadows and the resulting affect on depth perception for night riding. It seems to take a real world experience into something more like a video game. No matter how much light I have it takes a few turns on the same trail to get used to it.
I had a Gloworm X2 mounted on my A1 with a 3M VHB GoPro mount and it worked really well. No issues with placement, light wasn't affected by the visor in any significant way, and it never came loose.
i agree with all of this. my light (ituo, out of business) is something like 2300 lumens and a remote battery pack. i run on helmet only. slow sections i will turn it down (it has 3 settings, which are even programmable), but for the fast spots i kick it on max. it has 3 LEDs in it, and has the ability to run different lenses that provide spot or flood patterns for each LED. i have a mix between the patterns, although i can't remember exactly what it is offhand.
One of my favorite things about night riding is the ability to make the regular trails new again.
On the Harvest Moon I went out for a couple hours and was able to keep my light off except for the DHing.
I haven't seen the Olight bike lights before but I've been carrying their Mini Warrior 2 flashlight for the last 6 weeks and I'm very impressed with it. It's a nice piece of kit, even if it was made in China.
On the Harvest Moon I went out for a couple hours and was able to keep my light off except for the DHing.
I haven't seen the Olight bike lights before but I've been carrying their Mini Warrior 2 flashlight for the last 6 weeks and I'm very impressed with it. It's a nice piece of kit, even if it was made in China.
This is how I run my Lupine Piko. Screw being tethered to a pack. Especially since I run a hip pack on most night rides.
And yeah, JM is right, having a remote makes it easier to maximize run time by using high power only when needed. A remote is also good for those surprise downhills when the last thing you want to do is take a hand off and fiddle with a switch.
I have the Magic Shine Egle M2 on the bars, it has both flood and spot beams and a long run battery remote that will go 4 hours on full power , 2400 lumens and a bright eyes helmet light with remote battery that produces 1200 lumens on full spot. Both lights have 5 power settings (eagle has 5 for flood and five for spot. and you can run flood, spot or both at the same time
and the bright eyes fits your budget big time
and the bright eyes fits your budget big time
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The trails you ride matter a lot as well. If fast and flowy, you likely want a narrow intensive light beam. If you plan to ride technical trails with chunk and other things that catch your pedals when not careful, get some wider beam for better peripheral vision.
For me, the weight of the light mounted on the helmet matters (achy neck etc), so I prefer lights with the battery pack sitting in my ass pack.
The fence is 25m away and this is the Bright eyes helmet spot beam on high
I have these all-in-ones that do 1600, and there is an 1800 lumen version available. As I said it’s too much even at hyperspeed, you get annoying glare off leaves. I run them on 3/4 which is like 1200 lumens each most of the time, less if it is raining or misty, any they last 3ish hours easy. These ones have two of the newer tesla type batteries in and in my experience are fine on your lid. Simple is good IMO, no wires to catch or fuck about with.
Think of it like a dropper remote...it works kinda the same and you end up relying on it the same.
And IME commuting, there is no such thing as enough light. If I could have a 100% laser beam or plasma I would do it, so the drivers turning with traffic would actually look in the direction they are going. Strobe helps a lot though. Back to remotes, the other thing I do is when I cross an intersection, I put it on strobe, take it off when I'm back on the path.
