Brighter than a Thousand Suns

[Mikefule]

A few years ago when I first started to take unicycling seriously as a sport in its own right, I did a few night rides, relying on a tiny Petzl zoom head torch with an incandescent bulb, and sometimes a hand held torch. It was fun, but not exactly great riding pelasure.

Over recent years, I haven’t even tried - and as a result, each winter I lose fitness, able to do only occasional weekend rides.

Last week, I tried a late evening ride, and stayed out later than intended, and ended up riding back along a single track by the light of a hand held torch. Fun, but hard work.

So yesterday, rather on the spur of the moment, I paid way too much for a set of super bright headlights. More than I spent on any of my first three or four unicycles!

First try out tonight. They have four brightness settings: brighter than a cheap head torch; much brighter than a cheap head torch; really very bright indeed; and “you can make toast with it too.” There’s also a flashing mode.

It took abit of sorting out to get them mounted on my helmet. In the first half a mile or so I UPDd three times on those irritating little wheel traps that lurk on single track where there is long grass.

Then I did about 40 minutes with no further UPDs - including field boundaries, tight winding single track through woodland, and a steep and uneven descent that is “moderately difficult” in daylight. Fantastic.

They are Hope Vision 2 LEDs. I’d tell you a bit more about them except when I got home I found the chap in the shop hads put everything back in the box except the handbook!

Tip for night riders: when riding through dense woodland with low hanging branches, and wearing a headtorch, if you put your hand up to protect the head torch from the low branches, everything suddenly goes very dark indeed!

[pkittle]

Other recommendations?

Thanks for the info on your new lights, Mike. I’m looking at picking up a couple of 2-AA cell CREE or Luxeon flashlights to use on a 24 hour race next month. Like the ones you bought, they have “stupid-bright” settings. And I like that they use AA batteries, not least because I have some really nice rechargeables that should last me as long as I need, and I can always toss in some plain old new AAs if needed.

There’s a pretty easy way of attaching a flashlight to a helmet using a silicon wristband (like the Lance Armstrong ones), but I’m not sure how to mount the second to the uni. If I’m on the 36er, the handlebar will make it much easier, but I may be on the 29er instead.

Anybody else have “Brighter than a thousand suns” lights to recommend?

[Krashin_Kenny]

@pkittle

Anybody else have “Brighter than a thousand suns” lights to recommend?

I use a small 900 Lumen (stupily bright) flashlight that uses one 18650 lithium battery with a burn time of 75 minutes. Best part is it’s lightweight, cheap and the rechargeable batteries are inexpensive as well. I use two velcro straps to secure it to my helmet. It can be found here:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.12623

[Mikefule]

These lights have a rechargeable battery pack, and give a burn time of several hours, even on the highest setting. Also, with the special helment mounting, you can adjust the angle of the beam up or down while riding.

[Splodge]

I’m also determined not to let winter stop me riding so I’ve got an ‘Exposure lights Joystck’ - similar quality to Hope lights (although this is the single LED one).
Mega bright with a 3 hour burn time and rechargeble with clever add-ons and functions if needed. Used it a few times in anger now and I’d never go back to a ‘normal’ type light. Well worth it.

http://www.tredz.co.uk/.Exposure-Joystick-Maxx-2-Rechargeable-Light_19623.htm

[joemarshall]

I have this torch:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.16501

It is lightweight (160g including battery pack), cheap (mine was £40 including a charger & 4 batteries), jolly bright (in theory about 2x as bright as the hope 2 LED ones - in reality, probably 1.5x at most, but still darn bright), and mounts nice and low on the helmet (I use velcro straps to mount it).

My all in one torch has a 1 hour runtime on max (I run it on low for uphill, medium for most riding and high for rocky downhill and things like that), and you can swap the batteries pretty quickly. Batteries are cheap too, I think they were £4 for 2 or something silly.

There is also a £50 version which has an external battery pack, meaning you get 3 hour runtime on full. I prefer an all in one personally, but I know some people with the external battery pack who like it.

Thanks for the info on your new lights, Mike. I’m looking at picking up a couple of 2-AA cell CREE or Luxeon flashlights to use on a 24 hour race next month. Like the ones you bought, they have “stupid-bright” settings.

I’ve used AA cell ones, and they are sort of bright, just bright enough for muni riding, but the ones that take funny batteries like I’m recommending (and Kenny does too), are way way brighter - the low mode is almost the same as the brightest mode on the AA versions. The expensive lights Mike has are also brighter, probably at least 2x as bright on high.

Joe

[redwelly]

@joemarshall

I have this torch:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.16501

That sounds practical (I resisted saying ‘looks nice’, as it’s ugly as sin), but do you have to cycle through all eight modes to turn it off?

I have one of the AA ones and it isn’t quite bright enough to use on its own - would need a couple really.

Sam

[joemarshall]

It has a button that you click to turn on, press lightly to cycle modes. So you can always turn it on or off. The first time you turn it on, it is always in medium mode, then goes high, flash, low, and four useless modes (is dead quick to cycle through them, but would be better with just high med and low).

Joe

[semach.the.monkey]

I’ve got one of the Tesco LED torches and some velcro strips. It isn’t quite as bright as some of the really expensive setups out there, but for £8 (or is it £8.99? Can’t remember), I could afford to invest in more than one.

STM

[Eiserne_Hand]

Really bright
Perhaps try this. Handmade.

[pkittle]

So I picked up a Princeton Tec Apex headlamp (the kind that have the elastic straps that let you wear it like a headband), which has a 130-lumen led and four “super bright” leds. You can put it in four modes: the 4-leds on low or high (which are pretty bright for tasks like setting up camp), or the CREE led on low or high (the 130 lumen mode). It takes 4 AA batteries, which I like as I have a bunch of eneloop rechargables that work great in it.

I’ve attached some pictures below of how I attached it to my helmet. It was stupidly easy–just used thick rubber bands! This is actually more “proof of concept” at this stage, as I’ll replace the rubber bands with silicone bands (I have some Livestrong bracelets in hiding that’ll be well-suited). Both light and battery pack are very solidly attached. I also have a small led flashlight that I may attach to the seatpost as a close-to-ground flood light–we’ll see how that works out.

Taking the setup out for the first try tonight, and looking forward to it!

[pkittle]

So took a nice 6-mile ride last night with the new light setup. It was about a mile on singletrack, a mile on tarmac, and the rest on primitive gravel road.

The lights worked perfectly. The maglite 2-AA was attached to my seatpost with a Livestrong band, and did a good job of providing basic close-to-ground light, while the helmet Apex put out a terrific amount of light. I ran it on the “low” CREE setting and had plenty of light, especially in the shadowed areas (it was a nearly full moon, so when there was no overhead obstruction, there was quite a bit of ambient light).

It was quite exhilarating, really–I haven’t ridden anything off-road at night before, and although where we rode was quite familiar terrain, the night-time perspective made it seem very foreign. Awesome!