Anyone have any experience with these lights? Seems like a pretty smoking deal. I pulled this site off the Interbike website.
I do a lot of singletrack in the dark and I can’t imagine needing 3,000 lumens pointed in one direction.
Just an FYI, a lot of light ratings are based on the ‘capability’ not on the actual lumen rating. I’d be very surprised if the light got over 1200 lumens.
Yup, I’ll bet max 1500 lumens. Not that that’s too shabby - that’s probably as bright as car beams on high. Utterly blinding if you run into someone on the trail, so hopefully you’re all alone out there.
LED lights have gotten crazy cheap in the past 2 years. Halogens with similar power (now totally obsolete due to heating & cost) were 5x as expensive for much worse results. I recall at the dawn of these LED flashlights, my $45 Fenix flashlight which threw out 180 lumens was brighter than a few guys with $500 Halogen lighting systems I went riding with.
3000 lumens can be very handy on a technical mtb ride if you are going fast. The ability to see well enough to make quick directional changes and when that doesn’t work to blast rocks and trees to dust with the beam before you hit them.
You could also melt your competitors tires if need be.
I do a lot of singletrack in the dark and I can’t imagine needing 3,000 lumens pointed in one direction.
This^^^
I ride a few mornings before sunup each week with a $100 magic shine 1000 claimed lumen on my helmet and can’t imagine needing more.
I have the Deal Extreme ‘Magic Shine’ knockoff, $35 shipped. I use two, one on the handlebars and one on my helmet. I’ve never needed anything more and couldn’t imagine how I could. Even on fast, flat technical, pitch black night rides I can see great. Sometimes I worry that I’m blinding deer and crippling small animals along the trail…
If those lamps use the Cree LED chips they say they do then they are the the most efficient currently availible. Only downside of this type of LED is the light has very high colour temperature.
The XM-L U2 is Cree’s latest chip capable of a maximum light output of 742lumen. So effectively the maximum output of that lamp with 3 crees is 2100lumen, before you factor in the losses in the optics, due to the chips heating, due to the light output decreasing over time, etc. Cramming 3 LED’into that lamp means it is going to get quite hot,
IMHO going over 1000lumen starts to get a bit pointless and if you want to go beyond that it’d is much better to split the light up e.g. have 700lumen on the bike and 700lumen on the head rather than have 2000lumen on the bike.
I have a 2x XM-L T6 light (real ~1200lumen) and that is plenty bright for high speed offroad riding, if there happens to be somebody coming the other way they tend to get a bit pissed off as it hurts their eyes :-/
An excellent alternative light for the same price from a fine company with the same optics is the dinotte light xml 3. Super impressive and it pumps out about 1500 real lumens according to mtbr light testing.
http://store.dinottelighting.com/dinotte-xml-3-headlight-p174.aspx
any recommendations for headlamps in the lumen range your suggesting? I’m looking for something to get out on the skate ski’s this winter after work (dark ass). Thanks.
if you want to go beyond that it’d is much better to split the light up e.g. have 700lumen on the bike and 700lumen on the head rather than have 2000lumen on the bike.
I was going to ask where people normally put the lights. Is what you suggested above the standard setup? it’s pretty bad if it’s not on the helmet right?
Would ~1000 lumen on the helmet and 1000 on the bike be overkill for a commute that is mostly paved trail through the woods, but with some on the road?
Does anyone know if they make kits so that one battery can support two front lights, and possibly a rear flasher? Or do you use a little double A battery jobbie there?
Two years ago I threw in the towel on my NiteRider HIDs (had two of them - Blowtorch and Flamthrower). Heavy and very iffy on whether or not they wanted to work, I asked a friend of mine that does a lot of night riding what he was using. He turned me on to Magic Shine. I bought two of their lights - one for the bike, one for the helmet. Best $180 I’ve ever spent on lights. This lights absolutely smoked my NiteRiders, and unlike the NiteRiders, these were much lighter and have been flawless in their reliability.
They are rated at 1300 lumens for the 3-lamp light (mounted on bars) and 900 lumens for the single lamp (mounted on teh helmet). True testing supposedly showed their output to be just slightly lower than advertised, but on trails I can’t run them at full output because they are just too bright. I know this sounds weird, but there really is such a thing as too much light. I cut them both back a little and have well over 4 hours of continuous running time. They have since launched new models that are supposed to be brighter and have longer run times. I can’t speak to this as I only have experience with the models I own.
Reviews online are okay for these lights, but I think they are a little biased because: 1) they do not advertise at all, so no revenue goes to online bike review websites, and 2) you can’t buy these from a bike store. You have to buy them direct from the few places that sell them on eBay. No bike store I’ve seen will carry them because they’d have a hard time adding their mark-up and passing the cost onto the consumer who can just buy them direct and have them in 3 days.
With the days getting shorter now, mine are once again plulgged in and ready to go. In fact, tonight may be the first night I break them out since April.
Magicshine on my helmet and a MiNewt on the bar is perfect for me.
Yes, one on the helmet so there us light where you are looking and one on the bars so there is light where you’re bike is pointed.
No, its not overkill. Most lights have adjustable settings.
I’m curious as to how you will mount those types of lights as they aren’t as small as say a Petzl headlamp.
I’m curious as to how you will mount those types of lights as they aren’t as small as say a Petzl headlamp.
They come with rubber O-rings that you wrap around the bar, and for helmet use they have a plastic mount that you affix to your helmet with straps and once agian use an O-ring to attach the light to the mount.
On a side note, you definitely want two lights versus one. If one goes out you’ll have a back-up.
seems a little excessive to me. you’re approaching surgical grade lighting at that point… in fact, i sell a surgical LED headlight with an output of just over 3,500 lumens, and it’s not $249, that’s for sure! guess the price isn’t so bad when you think of it that way…
Yeah, I’m not sure how I am going to achieve the desired outcome yet. I think I will end up with something more like the petzle or princeton tec at about 150 lumen. I don’t think I am about to start wearing my helmet when I ski, although perhaps I should!
Lupine piko
.
Lupine piko
Absolutely. Especially since they bumped it up to 700+lm. Piko on the helmet, piko on the bars. That’s what I’d run. I just run a piko on the bars of my roadie for dusk riding. And it’s my year-round front light in flashing mode anyway.
I also like the idea of a light made in Germany. (Or a light made in the USA.) It’s not to say that Chinese made lights are bad, by any means. I just like the idea of supporting manufacturing somewhere other than China when I can.