Light Show

I'm a bit of a bike-light geek. It comes in part from commuting by bike, made possible half the year only by having good lights, and from ultra-riding/randonneuring, which I did for a number of years before becoming a full-time duathlete. Lighting has until now been a game of trade-offs: Run time, lighting power, weight, and resistance are all factors one had to consider when choosing a light system. The rechargeable commuter lights threw out a nice patch of light, but had limited run times, but the alkaline-battery powered lights were a little underpowered for many circumstances. The battery powered lights required you to change batteries often and weighed you down, but the dynamo powered lights sapped power from your pedaling, faded when you were climbing and (in the case of the sidewall driven generators) slipped in the rain.

Lately, much of the research has been in how to create LED headlights and make them stronger. The first LED headlights were crap. I rode with a 1.5W cateye that threw out a very weak bluish light and was made so cheaply the case cracked at the mount (not just once, but twice, with virtually identical cracking patterns).But the light manufacturers have been doing some good work, and I think the LED lights are getting better. As the change back to standard time has loomed over the past month, I've started playing with this Cateye model and the Niterider Ultrafazer 3.0. Neither is good enough to be a primary light source on a dark commute down a bike trail, although they might be adequate if one is riding on fully lit streets--if one is only concerned about visibility to cars and maybe picking out a road hazard or two. But what has me really excited is the Planet Bike Super Spot, a 1-watt bike using the new Luxeon Star LED technology. (I have one of these on order. I'm just waiting to put it on and try it out.) This Luxeon Star technology has the reputation of being every bit the equal of strong incandescent lights, with a far longer run time and lower battery consumption. I suspect that we will see some great strides in this direction in the near future. For the time being, though, I'm looking forward to playing with these new lights to find out what they can do.