Which headlight is sufficient for trails at night?

[Mr. Coffee]

....
Side note coming from the video production world, be suspicious of anything claiming multi thousand lumen output without an inbuilt fan.

Exactly this.

 

[Johnny]

I'd say a go 800+ lumens (but real measurements not inflated fake numbers) will be good, for trails I would probably go 1000+.

My experience with Niterider has been positive and I think you can find 1200 lumina in the $50-60 range on ebay.

I also looked into the cheap cree lights. They may be bright but the real problem seems to be the included batteries which are hazardous (It is an irony that they put Fire in the names of these batteries and lights). If I buy one of those cheap ones I would make sure to buy quality batteries instead of using the included ones.

 

[Daffyh]

Any Lithium Ion battery with 'fire' in the name is an almost guaranteed fake.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Refreshing the old thread.

I own three e-bikes, and two of them have lighting proper to ride trails at night:

1. My Vado is equipped by Specialized with Supernova M99 Pro headlight. It is a powerful lamp! Working in automatic mode, it produces bright day-light (always on), switching to strong low-beam light whenever it gets dark (it could be a tunnel or dark forest, too), and it goes into high-beam 1600 lm light on demand;
2. My Trance E+ has an external CatEye Volt 1700, another powerful lamp with 5 distinct modes and long-life Li-ion USB rechargeable battery.

Let it suffice to say both lamps showed their usefulness on a night ride through forest with my gf last August. We never missed lighting!

Now, in need to have external lighting on my touring e-bike, I bought CatEye AMPP 1100. Nice, powerful lamp, lighter than the Volt 1700 but unfortunately far shorter battery life. Still, three times cheaper than the Volt 1700.

CatEye AMPP 1100 at the mid-beam setting (800 lm).

 

[Law]

Now I want to ride at night. Very cool....

 

[linklemming]

Just to reiterate what I have stated before, if your seriously considering offroad light use, definately consider more than one light(think redundancy). I have ridden probably 70+% of my rides at night since around 2006.

Its pretty bad when your main/only light goes out for some reason. I have had this happen while bombing a singletrack run and luckily I had a backup on my helmet. The culprit was a bad wire. I have also had a light turn off due to low battery on a ride.

IMHO, the best offroad setup is a more power wider beam on the bars (the lower the light, the more shadow depth you will see) and a less powerful spot beam on the helmet to allow you to look around independent of handlebar position.

Lots of lights to choose from. I used lights from nitelightning for over 10 years (dont think they are in business anymore, lights are still awesome but require external pack), tried a few DIY lights, dinotte and just recently went back to niterider

I always carry 4 niterider lumina 850s in my camelback these days. I typically use 1-3 on a ride depending on the bike (which might have its own light) and the trail. Worst case/most lights is 2 on the bars and 1 on the helmet and 1 backup. My only issue with this setup is that there is not a spot beam option for the helmet. I could DIY a spottier lens but havnt done so.

 

[Ravi Kempaiah]

I biked thousands of miles after dark (after 9pm) when I set the Guinness record back in 2016.
Looking back, I did some insane night riding. This video is one of the mildest I would say but there were some pretty long roads and trails in Northern Minnesota with no roadside light at all.

What made this kind of crazy riding possible was the Supernova M99 Pro light on the ST2-S. It was super bright and I never had to worry about charging it. I had already enough things to worry about (GPS, GoPro, phone etc) so, one more thing that needs constant recharging is just a hassle. I would recommend Supernova M99 products strongly because these lights integrate well into most bikes with Bosch/Yamaha/ Shimano drives and provide ample lighting for 99% of the use cases.

 

[linklemming]

I biked thousands of miles after dark (after 9pm) when I set the Guinness record back in 2016.
Looking back, I did some insane night riding. This video is one of the mildest I would say but there were some pretty long roads and trails in Northern Minnesota with no roadside light at all.

What made this kind of crazy riding possible was the Supernova M99 Pro light on the ST2-S. It was super bright and I never had to worry about charging it. I had already enough things to worry about (GPS, GoPro, phone etc) so, one more thing that needs constant recharging is just a hassle. I would recommend Supernova M99 products strongly because these lights integrate well into most bikes with Bosch/Yamaha/ Shimano drives and provide ample lighting for 99% of the use cases.

No doubt that is an awesome light for your 'use case' and suits 'your requirements'. I have many bikes (6 at the moment) and having a common light setup for all bikes is more economical

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I would recommend Supernova M99 products strongly because these lights integrate well into most bikes with Bosch/Yamaha/ Shimano drives and provide ample lighting for 99% of the use cases.

As I mentioned before, the same light is used on the top-end European Vados.

 

[gujer911]

don't forget to check out fisher fab by lunacycles, i have 36-90v version, love it every time i hit the bike path at night i usually keep it at 2900 lumens,
second choice is my beloved acebeam L16, man i have beaten the s*it out of this light in my onewheel days, crashed this light on asphalt doing 20plus mph nosedives and many other times, this acebeam is a beast and best part is i can run it with my 5v power bank directly when the stock cell runs low...it was pricy when i got it for about 100 bucks but worth every penny.

 

[gujer911]

oh yeah, i do sometimes feel that the spread is insane on my fisherfab but i try to keep the angle super low so it doesn't blind oncoming traffic,
do u know any bike light that has cutoff design to it?
even that freaking 550 bucks 6000lumens light mentioned in this topic has the same spread as fisherfab!!!
where we bike riders gonna go man..
very little innovation is coming towards bike riders compare to auto industry!!!

 

[TheEqualiser]

Refreshing the old thread.

I own three e-bikes, and two of them have lighting proper to ride trails at night:

1. My Vado is equipped by Specialized with Supernova M99 Pro headlight. It is a powerful lamp! Working in automatic mode, it produces bright day-light (always on), switching to strong low-beam light whenever it gets dark (it could be a tunnel or dark forest, too), and it goes into high-beam 1600 lm light on demand;
2. My Trance E+ has an external CatEye Volt 1700, another powerful lamp with 5 distinct modes and long-life Li-ion USB rechargeable battery.

Let it suffice to say both lamps showed their usefulness on a night ride through forest with my gf last August. We never missed lighting!

Now, in need to have external lighting on my touring e-bike, I bought CatEye AMPP 1100. Nice, powerful lamp, lighter than the Volt 1700 but unfortunately far shorter battery life. Still, three times cheaper than the Volt 1700.

View attachment 65484
CatEye AMPP 1100 at the mid-beam setting (800 lm).

Wow! Maybe when I was a kid I would ride that road in the dark no problem (with my old Ever Ready bike lights) but Australia has made me soft and age has made we wiser (or at least more experienced). I prefer a nice dedicated bike lane at the side of the road and I manage it all with two lights on the front and three on the rear (including my built-in helmet light) that cost less than $100 in total.

 

[Art Deco]

ok never mind.. that's almost $520 US

Supernova M99 PRO

shop.supernova-design.com

I think Amazon was selling a whole ebike for $520 US ...

 

[rcdanner]

This Wakyme 1200 Lumen light is very bright. It lasts 2 hrs for my 35 mile ride at highest power. Good value at $19.

Amazon.com

 

[ki11a]

I am getting the Outbound Lighting Focal Road Series Headlight, its got great reviews and seems like it will be really bright...as bright as a car headlight!

They also have a Trail Edition which is basically the same headlight just built for better trail specs.

It seems if you want to get a proper bright headlight, and I say headlight, not flashlight....it will be at least $150+ for the lumens you need.

 

[gujer911]

my acebeam L16 has this centre beam and surround hollow is like 25 percent of what u see in centre so yeah this flash light kind of does the job attached to the helmet and still not blind oncoming...

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I just need to say the Supernova M99 Pro produces asymmetrical light with top cut off, same as expected from the car.

 

[ki11a]

I would much rather get a light that has a seperate rechargeable battery than run it off my bike battery, I can understand why someone would, but I definately would not....also yeah, the Outbound Lighting also has a light cut off line with an awesome light carpet.

That Ali Link Headlight looks ok if it was a seperate battery Id say it was a go. But because it runs off the bike battery, if its stats are correct @ 1900lumens and wattage @ 30.8W, thats not a tiny bit of power at all, I am pretty sure that will eat your battery up.

The batterys that come seperatley with all the highbeam type headlights are for a reason, and a good one at that...they eat up power and need good quality cells.

Pics are someone else who bought the light Im gonna get :O

 

[kurt_s]

That's what we're talking about for whole time.

So I provided the link above, $130 Canadian which is $98 US at today's rate.
It's ECE certified, it has cut off too, so it won't blind other cyclists.

Look at the AliExpress link, it has nice beam pattern. Low Beam/High Beam switchable.

I have the Fisherfab also but I would have bought the Grin had I come across it (not in stock?). The Fisherfab will burn your fingers if you touch it after running at full output. I am concerned with being seen riding during the day at speed as much and night riding sometimes though where cutoff does not apply.

 

[ki11a]

Ah thats cool I didnt know they made little external battery packs with the connectors like that. Neat.

Yeah I was checking it out when I was looking at all sorts of headlights and what to compare and buy...the Volt 6000 is a BEAST, but its toooo expensive for me right now.