UKH

I'm looking for recommendations for decent mountain bike lights for winter evening rides. The trails I'd be using are fairly benign.

What should I be looking for in terms of lumens? What's a sensible minimum? There's a cheap (relatively) Halfords light rated at 1800 lumens. I'm not going to be doing anything extreme, and the biking is just cross-training for running, so I'd prefer not to spend huge amounts of money (where 'huge' is a bit variable). Preferably rechargeable.

In reply to tony:

My NiteRider has always been very good for the money.

I think some of the ones like Exposure are overpriced for most people's needs.

In reply to tony:

Whatever you go for, I'd have two - one on my handlebars and one on my helmet for looking round corners, more carefully into potholes or puddles etc.

The ones I have bought from Lidl middle aisle have all worked surprisingly well. I use smaller one as a helmet light. I haven't seen one of the big multi LED ones though being sold there for some years. You might have to go onto the internet or Halfords to find one of them now.

In reply to tony:

I've got a Cateye Volt 800 which I find fine. There's obviously much brighter ones than that (I've had it a few years) but I think to a large extend your eyes just get used to what you do have. There's not battery indication though so I make sure it's fully charged before heading out and take a spare. Further to the comment above having something head mounted is pretty handy if you need to do any repairs.

In reply to tony:

Probably 5-600 min as a simplistic answer for mt biking off-road easy stuff.

Overall however it depends what riding you are doing in terms of likes of speed, terrain, technical difficulty, location, whether you will meet others (including dog walkers, bikers, wildlife, etc), the spread of the beam, and other things like your attitude to risk, etc. If you go too few lumens you can risk not identifying quickly enough things like roots, tree stumps, holes, rocks etc. If you go too powerful you loose your night vision so could miss things outwith the main part of the beam like low branches.

Personally, my choice is with 800 lumens for known low technical trails and tracks on which I’m unlikely to encounter dogs, animals like deer or walkers. This is more than some would need I suspect, though that one I have can that also be dimmed through programming. However, for serious stuff, I have also much more a powerful light (also adjustable though) for the little used trails, cross country, remote areas, where the chance of something causing a problem say like obstructions, branches down, etc., are all higher. 

Like TobyA I’d recommend two lights as well. My 800 lumen light (adjustable) is usually on my helmet (also can go on bike if that is all I need) and similar or a more powerful one on the handlebars. I actually have two sometimes on the handlebars though only one in use at a time. If I’m going to be on roads for various sections, I have one that is road legal and lower lumens on the bars (has a cut off to prevent dazzling others). It’s useful also off-road to if I’m likely to meet others in say woods I can switch over from the powerful one timeously to avoid dazzling others.

The helmet one beside what was mentioned already can be used to check bike things on the move like have I picked up debris on the cassette, derailleur, chain, etc. Also great if a handlebar one fails for whatever reason when out; a forest on a dark night is not a place you want to be without any light!! Just remember not to look (or point the bar one) directly at anyone you are riding with or meet on passing like dog walkers with any mt bike light and more so if you have powerful ones.

In reply to tony:

I used a Cree light a few years ago, when I rode nights. Their quality is possibly questionable, there’s a few links about them. However the guys I rode with all said it was much brighter than their significantly more expensive ones. Turns night into day

https://gb.ledsupermall.com/eternalfire-bh01-cree-xm-l-t6-3-modes-1800-lume...

https://bigupgadgets.com/uk/usb-cree-xml-t6-led-headlamp-bike-light-900lm-1...

In reply to Graeme G: Cree are a brand of LED, with a lot of models at different price points.  These are assembled into a lot of LED units at a variety of prices.

I've had a Magicshine unit with a max of reputedly 1200 im for a few years with a remote battery pack.  The battery life isn't as good as it was, but it's good enough and it hasn't burnt the house down so I can't argue with price/quality.  It's hard for the lights to run at max output for long... when they get hot (which diesn't take many minutes) the light output per watt is reduced

In reply to tony:

If you have choose between a helmet or handlebar mounted light get helmet mounted. Ideally a narrow spot beam on your head and a wide flood beam on your bars. 

1800 is quite a lot. I'm not sure what I'm running but it's not that much. Something one of my mates said years ago in the days of huge bottle batteries and expensive halogen lights with about 300 lumens at best was that the point of night riding was to ride at night with enough light to see by, not to have so much light that you effectively turned night into day.

I've been using an Exposure Axis on my head and a Hope 4LED on the bars for years and they're more than adequate for riding in the hills, hammering trails or events like the Strathpuffer yet they're puny by today's standards.

In reply to tony:

I’ve got an Exposure Joystick helmet/bar mounted light which I can’t rate highly enough. I think it’s about 1000 lumens at maximum, which is plenty enough for non-technical trails. It’s superbly well built/ designed and is well worth the money over cheaper alternatives in my opinion. It’s small and light enough that I carry it on the bike most of the time.

On the very rare occasions I ride (really!) technical trails at night, I use it in helmet mounted mode alongside a Lifeline Pavo 2500 lumen bar mounted light. The exposure light gets far more use though.
 

In reply to tony:

I've found the Halfords one you mention is fine for riding down Scottish hill tracks on the darkest of nights. I'd probably want something brighter for technical downhill routes, but since I have no plans to do any of those at night it's not an issue. I'd also agree it's good to have a head or helmet torch as well, to pick out particular features.

In reply to wbo2:

Can’t remember the name of the brand I had. Made in China, dirt cheap. Supposedly risk of battery catching fire, never happened to mine.

Have to say it burned full beam for at least a couple of hours. Never noticed any drop-off.

In reply to Guy Hurst:

Also stops you from shitting yourself when you hear noises in the woods to the side of you. You def want to be able to see what’s coming to get you.

In reply to tony: The Pieman makes a very good point - if you're rolling around with very powerful lights, be very cognizant of other people who are out as well as what you're doing does affect them, especially if they get a blast in the face, and it will take a bit of time before there eyesight readapts to low light.  Also they can affect wildlife, so just be careful.

It's something I find particularly annoying, to the point I've deliberately dazzled people back to make a point (no I'm not particularly proud but god it's annoying)

In reply to everyone:

Very many thanks - all very useful reading.

Having read reviews of lights with >2000lm, it does seem there's a consensus here that this would be overkill. The repeated point about a helmet light is taken. I won't be doing anything particularly (or even remotely) technical, so it seems 800lm is sufficient and there's no need to spend stupid amounst of money.

In reply to Graeme G:

I used to use cheap imported ones; they were false economy for me as they just kept failing.

Also, had two riding friends in the village who have had battery fires from their cheap MTB lights; I'd never use now, value my house more than saving a few quid on cheap lights !

In reply to tony:

Not sure if this helps but I went down some fairly rocky steep terrain mountain biking in winter in the dark with an Aldi front bike light (think it was 2 x CREE LEDs) and a Petzl Aktic core headtorch, it was fine. Neither cost a fortune.

In reply to tony:

+1 for the Halfords Advanced range.

There's a brand new 1000 lumen one going on ebay for £26.

In reply to Guy Hurst:

I also have the Halfords 1800 lumen light and IME it's fine for most of the night-time off-road riding that I do - which, as in your case, does not involve gnarly downhill trails.  The light has five different intensity settings so you don't need to run 1800 lumens all the time.  The first three settings use a lower-power LED behind a diffuser lens, then at the fourth and fifth settings it's augmented with a second LED behind a clear lens.  There are also three flash/strobe settings.

One thing to beware/be aware of with this light is that it uses non-standard 18650 cells, with both terminals at one end of the cell.  When the light first came out Halfords didn't offer spares of this battery type: the only other manufacturers I could find that used this type of cell were Moon, and Nebo (for torches).  The Moon cells are pretty eye-wateringly expensive, and the Nebo ones don't seem to be available in the UK (and anyway are fairly low capacity).  Fortunately, since then these "flat-top" cells seem to have become more widely available, and Halfords have now started stocking 3200mAh ones as spares for the 1800 lumen light at IMO a pretty reasonable £15 for two.  So those with range anxiety can now carry spares - though be aware that there is no separate charger provided with the light*, so you need to swap pairs of cells around in the light itself while at home to get all of them fully charged.

The light is solidly made and fairly chunky.  I think at a push it could be used instead of the old trick of a roll of coins in the fist, if you were unfortunate enough to end up in a situation requiring you to resort to violent means to defend yourself (the Garmin QR mount might prove useful in allowing rapid deployment in such a circumstance).

* Third party chargers may be available - I've not looked in to that so far,  As always with Lithium cells, you need to be careful to avoid cheap'n'nasty ones that don't manage the charging cycle properly and can potentially be a significant fire risk.

In reply to tony:

I do gentle trails at night and I bought an 800 lumen torch off eBay and made a mount for it. It cost £9 c/w a crap 18650 cell that I binned. It's fine for what I do, but the friend I ride with has a Fenix that cost 10x as much, and it's definitely far superior.

I'm on the hunt for something a bit better, so will be checking out the suggestions on this thread.

A couple of points: My homemade adjustable mount is far superior to anything I've seen for sale with a fancy bike light, they all seem to consist of a rubber band. Always ride with two lights, after I hit a bump going downhill and my light went out. That was not fun.