Hi
nmba guy,
There are many of us who ride solely with LED based lights. Unfortunately there is a trend in the industry to compare lights to an equivalent halogen wattage, which is a misleading and pointless statement. You can read into a few of my thoughts about this
here. Colour temperature, tint and the optical qualities of lights all have a huge impact on perceived light output.
Generally you can expect a currently available commercial triple emitter light to illuminate the trail just as well as a 10-20 watt halogen, depending on the manufacturer. Certainly most commercial triple emitter lights that I have seen have provided more then enough light to ride flat out on serious trails in the dark.
Most riders seem to be happy with a triple emitter light, sometimes using a twin emitter light on the helmet as a spot, and using the triple emitter light on the bars as a more of a fill. Others feel they can get away with a pair of single or twin emitter lights too, and others are even happy with just a single emitter light depending on where they're riding. Obviously it comes down to personal preference and what you normally ride with, and what you want to use your light for.
LED based lights have a serious advantage over HID's in a number of areas. You don't have the issues of fragile bulbs and expensive bulb failures, and unlike HID you have instant turn on regardless of "hot" or "cold" starts, highly efficient dimming, and usually longer burn times and lower system weights. Another advantage is that LED based lights allow for manufacturers to have a huge impact on optics and reflectors, really customizing the beam shape, unlike HID where you have a limited ability to change the beam shape at all. This can be a disadvantage too, but most manufactures have got things right.
Current drawbacks with commercial LED systems is in raw light output which isn't quite up there with HID yet, reasonably high system prices, and a huge variance between manufacturers in terms of optical quality and beam shapes. However if you do your research like you would with any other system, you'll quickly work out what you need to look out for.
Some members have mentioned home made LED systems, and currently you have an advantage if you go this way as manufacturers have been quite slow in adopting the use of the latest LED emitters available on the market. A number of members here have built lights that are brighter then any other commercially available LED light, and are really close, if not exceeding HID efficiency and raw light output. However you will start to see these newer LED's released in products throughout the year. :thumbsup:
Keep on reading, there are plenty of great reviews both here on MTBR and on other websites, and if possible try and see some of these lights in action. There is also a reasonable sized list of various lighting manufacturers
here, although nowhere near comprehensive.
Cheers, Dave.