I was checking for a less expensive second light, and was surprised that so many people have great reviews for this, (4 out of 5 stars from 400 users) which is a super bright 1,200 lumens, but they have these up to 4,000 as well for not much more. Price is right for sure! And they come with charger, batteries and helmet strap.
wow, I haven’t looked at lights for a while, but for that price you can’t exactly go wrong. I would be tempted to buy four of them, on for the unicycle, one for your helmet, two spare batteries, and spare parts for modifying/tinkering.
I wonder what the build quality is like?
EDIT: remove the reflector and move the LED up in the housing and that should make an excellent 120˚ flood. Too bad they don’t ship to Canada or I might have sniped the deal.
Apparently pretty nice with aircraft alum. body and nice packaging with foam cutouts for each part. I started reading the reviews and it seems too good to be true, but then again, they have all purchased it and even got it ahead of time in most cases and free shipping.
Here’s and excellent review of the ebay 4,000 lumen bike light compared to much more expensive high end bike lights. Definitely overkill for what I need, but still very impressive and very low priced.
I have a Light and Motion. I forget the model but it was before their top lite went to LEDs. I got it for Muni, and at 600 lumens it was bright enough but not wide enough for me. Their Seca is wider but depth was a problem too w/ it on my helmet.
I’ve been looking at the Cygolite Expilion 680. Battery doesn’t last too long but I was thinking of getting two & put at diff angles. I would keep it at medium and switch batteries to my preferred if it dies. + maybe an extra battery.
I bought my lights for use on the road only. This is the front light and the other image gives an idea of brightness that I think is a little optimistic compared to my experience.
Thanks for reviving this thread. I would love to hear more if anyone has had really great experiences. It is gonna be getting dark soon and I wouldn’t mind having a decent trail setup. trying to keep the price low (who isn’t).
so let me get this straight: wide range for uni, narrow focus for head
I’ve done road riding at night on a b*ke, but that was commuting in a city, so I just had a normal cateye mount and a little helmet light
Terry, good choice, you can’t really go wrong with Fenix. They make good lights. I’m a cheap-o so I have a dealextreme flashlight that has treated me really well.
Looking at this one for serious overkill on high+no strobing modes. http://dx.com/p/singfire-sf-526-3-x-cree-xm-l-t6-3000lm-cool-white-3-mode-bicycle-headlight-grey-4-x-18650-232703
MagicShine
I have the MagicShine MJ-808U (2013) 1100 Lumen
with Improved Battery Pack.
I wanted something other than NiteRider which I paid a fortune for one 10 years ago.
However, trail riding at night is one of my favorite activities:)
I’ve been running one similar to this on my commuter bike for about a year now. It’s not the exact model, but the ones in this genre are all pretty much the same. (I bought mine from dx.com instead of Amazon, since they weren’t selling on Amazon at the time.) It’s held up well to daily use throughout the winter - rain, snow, whatever. I did have an issue with the battery pack where two of the leads on the charge protection circuit wiggled into contact with each other and the light would intermitantly shut off for no apparent reason. 5 minutes of work and a small dab of hot glue fixed that issue.
Word on the street with these is that they’re fine lights (generally made in the same factories as the high priced mainstream lights) but that QC is lower and some of the finer finishing touches are not there. If you’re at all handy, you can solve a lot of the QC issues (see hot glue note above) and if you’re buying through Amazon, you’ve got some better warranty backing. The batteries used in the packs are also, apparently, a bit on the cheaper end of the spectrum. I’ve had no problem, and for the price, you can get a replacement from somewhere like batteryspace and still be way ahead in money.
After a year with mine, (if it breaks anytime soon), I’ll be going this route again instead of the $1-200 for brand name bike lights.
Let there be light!
Flight of the “Fenix” night ride test!
My new Fenix BT20 is amazingly bright, even at low and mid power. Still pretty eerie riding in the dark, even though there’s a flood of light in front of you. But everything behind the light is still hard to see, which makes mounting a bit awkward!
Looking down beach ramp with light off:
With light on med. high. (6.5hr run time on this setting!)
Lowest setting:
“Turbo” (Highest)
I have taken a liking to riding single track at night. I had purchased a light & motion taz 1200: http://www.lightandmotion.com/bike/taz1200p.html
The light is quite powerful, with a nice mixture of width and distance. Being self contained you do feel the weight of it when it is strapped to your helmet. Another issue is the endurance of the battery. At the maximum setting of 1200 lumens, you get about 90 minutes (2hrs if in race mode high at 1000 lumens), which isn’t enough for me, not to mention that if you run down a LiIon battery regularly, you might compromise its longevity. In order to increase burn time, I would run the light in race mode low, which gives you 450 lumens and up to 4 hrs of burn time. I found 450 lumens not bright enough, especially when negotiating technical sections.
I now have the light and motion seca 2000 enduro: http://www.lightandmotion.com/bike/seca2000e.html , this thing is a beast! Its like carrying a portable sun in the trail with you, with plenty of battery endurance. I normally run the light in race mode high(1600 lumens) and have 3.5 hrs of battery endurance / 7 hrs if in race mode low (850lumens). The light head is very light and I keep the battery pack in my backpack. The taz 1200 has now been relegated to backup duty.
Andre
Just playing around with the drift HD ghost action cam last night while out in the trails with the dogs. I was using the light and motion seca 2000 enduro for lighting.
Andre
I’m a big Magic SHine fan, went through the battery recall and everything, sadly after they replaced all the batteries they were forced to shut down 
Anyway, on to lights…
I used to run ultramarathons which often required long hours of light usage, and the biggest issue is balancing “seeing” with battery life. More light requires more batteries, batteris weigh a lot. I ended up using handhelps because headlamps that are string enough are also quite heady. I also modified a bigger headlamp for use on a waist belt.
A typical rechargeable like the Magic Shine will last ~ 2 hours depending on temp and level of intensity used. I have two Li batteries, I rarely ride long enough to wear one out since most of my night rides are after work, but I’d stay under four hours of planned riding if I carried two battery packs as running out of light is bad. I carry a small backup light just in case.
For sure, if you want a light for night riding on a uni, you will want no less than 750lumens and you will want one that has a remote battery pack; that much light will require a big battery and you don’t want that much weight on your head.
I carry my battery in my water packs.
Hmm, maybe it was another group that distributed them??
The recall was a huge ordeal, I was glad to get my new batteries, but I know someone went out of business as a result of the recall process…
Okay, now I remember, it was Geomangear that closed down, they were the retailers for Magic Shine: http://geomangear.com/
safety lights
Thought I’d resurrect this old thread with some questions on those blinking safety/bike lights a lot of people seem to be using. Most I’ve seen have them mounted on the bike seat post. They are either white or red…blinking, of course… The good ones I’ve seen while driving really alert me to a bicycle up ahead. That’s the kind I want.
Not a lot to choose from in my area, so wondered if anybody used and/or could recommend one.
Thank you.
I really like my niterider sentinel 150 and solas 150, super bright and USB rechargeable. Mine lasts a true 4hrs per charge and is very bright even in the daylight. Cyglolight also makes a really good rear light called the hotshot, the entire line up are very bright and they make a 150 USB rechargeable as well(just less battery life).
For a tail light, I go red LEDs with erratic light pattern. Serfas is the brand and it’s super bright as well.
For a main light I use a CYGO-LITE EXPILION 850 USB light. Mounts on my helmet and turns the dark into daytime.
The Cygolite is by far the best light I’ve used.
I’ve got a few red lights on the rear of my uni, and then one bright headlight up front.
Two of these one on each side of my fork (well, actually on my rear rack) along with one of these either on my trunk bag, or round my seatpost for days I don’t use the bag - they’re a hell of a lot brighter than their size would indicate, and the Clip one is USB chargeable. Absolutely tiny so you can stow them in any pocket you’ve got.
Both those lights have flashing and still modes, so I run the two smaller side ones on flashing and the brighter middle one on still. I’ve not been SMIDSY’d on my 10pm commute home yet, so I assume people can see them 
Red Rear Lights
I picked up 8 of these for about $20 out of China. So far, I’m pleased. They have the standard constant-on, and 2 blinking modes … waterproof, too.
