Real World Tests - Get out of the backyard.
Hello,
This is my first post in this forum. I have been night riding since the mid 90's. Back then I had a full water bottle dual beam NiteRider rig that I used in the Santa Monica Mountains north of Sunset, and it was bright enough to bring home two riders in front of me who lights had long since failed.
Today, I am looking at moving back to the bay area after living in Tahoe for the past three years and looking to replace my older NiteRider HID lights. I don't ride at night up here, too scary, you never know what can come out of the bushes at you. In the Berkeley hills , it was scary enough dodging dear, up here its the bears
Anyways, I have a lot of experience riding at night, both on road and off, and I demand a lot from my lights. For me, I feel safer at night riding my bike as I am actively involved in my visibility vs. the daytime where it is a more passive affair. For the most part, I use my lights for commuting and working out (road) which means riding 20 miles an hour in traffic, up to 50+ down S. Park or Claremont. I have been looking at reviews of lights and I know it is late, but here is what I like to see, and what I favor in a light.
1. Handle Bar Lights: For me, watching you show the light in your backyard means very little to me. It is out of context, I don't ride my bike in the backyard so watching you shine a light there doesn't really let me know how it performs on the street. Lights & Motion does it well. An underpass with distance and angle lines on the street. What I am looking for in a handlebar light that can keep the road in front of me lit up, regardless of the noise around me. On-coming traffic, traffic from behind, amber or white street lights, a little rain or fog, you can't get a sense of that from your back-yard. The problem is that every light looks better in total darkness. What I need to know is will the on-coming traffic headlights overpower my light and mask that pothole on the road or not? If I am coming down Claremont at 45+ will the light see the sewer covers in the middle of the road? This light needs a good throw, but it also needs a good flood, especially right in front of you. What good is it to pick-up an object 75 feet out in front of you, if it drops out of the spot into 20 feet in front of you? Makes it difficult to thread the needle, on road or off.
2. Headlight. This light has saved my life a couple of times. One time, I was crossing in intersection and a driver from the on-coming traffic lane decided to do a snap left to beat the traffic. Had it not been for my headlight flooding his windshield forcing him to hit the breaks hard, he would have taken me out. I am sure many of you have had something like this happen to you. While I like handlebar light have a good flood to it, I like the Headlight to be a good spot, one that doesn't get washed out by the headlight, and as long as I keep it focused on the road, it won't blind on-coming traffic. For example, the Vis-360 ranked well as a commuter light, but it is difficult to tell how much stopping power it has. I would like to see lights for helmets waived back and forth around a handlebar light so I get a feel for what it adds to the light. My problem is if you get a light that doesn't match the handlebar light well, then when looking to the side you have to wait for your eyes to adjust lower light level. What you want is that where ever you put your spot, your eyes are already adjusted.
3. Tail Light. Francois, you mentioned during your review of the Vis-180 that you wondered why it didn't just flash, it it went in and out. The reason is that a flashing light is harder for a driver to judge distance, especially in less than optimal conditions. I liked the 10-led NiteRider tail light, for more than a decade, nothing came close. I used it in always on mode and a battery one in flasher mode. What I want to see in a tail light is how far can you see it clearly? Put a car 100 feet away with the tail lights on, then put the tail light 10 feet to the right, how does it relate? I know you said you can't film it in flash mode, but you could put a whole bar of lights next to a car tail light (not braking) at different distances. Right away, we would be able to see the performance of the whole line in one shot. How about a shot during the day? I like riding with a flasher all the time. Remember, I live up at Tahoe and I have to compete with the lake for people's attention.
Lastly, what I would like to see is for you to match systems in different price ranges. If you had $200, what helmet, handlebar and tail light would you choose, What if you had $300, $700, you get the idea.
I am sorry if got carried away in my first post. I hope some of what I said was useful.
- Roger