Lighting Advice

Source: Evans Cycles

Before choosing your lighting system think about the type of riding you need them for

• occasional rides back from the pub
• serious commuting
• all out off-road night riding.

Lights range dramatically in price from your basic LED to powerful rechargeable lights. At the very top end they can rival car headlights for visibility. LED's are the best choice for rear lights; they last a long time, offer clear visibility and are light, easy to fit and cheap. Even if you opt for a more expensive front lighting system a couple of LED's at the rear - used with reflective clothing -will offer you maximum visibility to car drivers.

The basic LED with replaceable battery offers limited riding time as a headlight but if you are only riding short distances in well light urban areas they are plenty strong enough to allow cars to see you. If you are using your bike daily for commuting then the cost of replacing batteries makes LED's prohibitive and you are better off spending a little more cash initially and buying a rechargeable light. These are generally a little bit more powerful as well as being heavier than an LED but the visibility and cost effectiveness improves.

The next step up is when you don't just want to be seen by other road users but you want to see yourself. Re- chargeable battery systems can provide you with several hours of riding time and a powerful beam.

If you are riding on dark lanes, training in the dark or doing a long commute then it is worth investing some serious money in your lights for your own comfort and safety.

Buying a re-chargeable light set up - points to consider.

How heavy is the battery and where on your bike does it need to go?
How easy are the lights to remove and how frequently will you need to do it?
How many hours of lighting will you get from one battery?
Will you require a spare battery and are they available separately?
Does your light system have energy saving modes?
How long does the battery take to charge?
Is there a helmet mount option for off-road?

Battery Types.

Four main battery types are used for bicycle lights: sealed lead acid,
NiCad (Nickel Cadmium), NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride and Li-Ion (Lithium Ion)

Each different type has different properties and requires slightly different
care techniques. Lead acid and Nicad are widely available and cheapest however they are also low-tech and heavier than the more sophisticated NiMH and Li-Ion.

NiCad batteries need to be fully discharged before recharging to prevent damage to the battery and allow full re-charge. This prevents 'top-up' charging. If you are riding a lot in very cold weather it is worth noting that Lead acid and NiCad are sensitive to cold.

NiMH are popular as they are easier to care for than NiCad - they don't require a full discharge -and have twice the capacity of a NiCad.

Li-Ion are the most sophisticated - they are used in mobile phones and cameras -they weight significantly less and hold their
charge for longer but they are also more expensive, however if you are using
lights on a daily basis their ease of use and longevity justifies the cost.

Lights for off-road riding.

If you plan to use your lights for mountain biking there are a few more points to consider than if you were just using them for road work. The beam provided by your light needs to give you sufficient visibility to enable you to adjust your riding to the obstacles of the terrain you are approaching. It's no good having a pool of light just in front of your wheel. The beam needs to be wide enough to take in the whole of the track and provide some peripheral visibility, an even beam with no dark spots and fade to the edges provides best visibility and least distractions. Many mountain bikers favour a headlamp as well as a bar mounted light, this is particularly valuable in twisting single track as you will be lighting where you are looking and where you want to go. Off-road riding will subject your lamp to a large amount of vibration so it needs to be robust with a secure mounting, and in winter it needs to be weather resistant.

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There is a legal requirement, as with all road going vehicles, for lights to be fitted and displayed during the hours of darkness. But having lights fitted to your bike is just common sense. They are an essential part of everyday cycling and can be considered to be an additional safety precaution even for daytime riding.

Types:

Bicycle lighting essentially takes on four forms:

• Standard battery filament bulb lights

• Rechargeable battery filament bulb lights

• LED (Light Emitting Diode) lights

• Dynamos

Standard battery filament bulb lights

The basics of bicycle lighting. Ordinary easily available batteries power a single filament type bulb.

Some may be equipped with "brighter" bulbs but these types of light are generally fairly basic and not very economical to run. Even with Alkali type batteries, don't expect them to last much more than about 6 to 8 hours on a set of batteries. Front lamps tend to flatten their batteries slightly faster than rear lamps as the bulb would generally be of a higher wattage.

Some headlamps (better quality ones generally) run at 6volts (4 x AA cells), not 2.4volts (2 x C cells). These headlamps tend to last longer on a set of batteries for an almost identical cost per set of batteries.

Prices tend to range from about £5.00 up to about £30.00

Best used for infrequent dusk and night-time short rides.

Rechargeable battery filament bulb lights

There are a number of different guises for rechargeable lights. The lights above could be made rechargeable simply by fitting a set of rechargeable batteries.

You can, however, find lights which are already equipped with rechargeable batteries when you buy. They can either be single light units with separate battery packs or, at the cheaper end of the scale they may be self contained units with integral batteries and charging circuits.

Recharcheable lights tend to only be front lights and either come bundled with a separate LED (see below) rear light or are sold separately.

Better quality lights will possibly feature brighter bulbs and more efficient battery packs. Some units may have more than one headlamp unit powered from a single battery pack.

Battery packs are the core of the systems. NiCads are used in the majority of the smaller self contained lights, but once you look at separate units, you may find lead acid, NiCad, NiMh or even Li-Ion batteries. The more expensive the system, generally the more efficient the battery.

• Lead Acid - similar to the battery in your car, are very robust. They can be recharged at any time without major risk to the battery BUT they are heavy and bulky. They tend to be rectangular and can be awkward to attach to your bike, although they should come with a bag with which to fasten them to your frame. Life expectancy 400-600 charges.

• NiCad - are the standard form of traditional rechargeable batteries. They generally give the equivalent power output as Lead Acid and are smaller and generally lighter. A standard NiCad cell is a typical round battery shape and an array of batteries can be fitted into a holder. These holders are commonly made to fit into a bottle cage mounted to your frame. NiCad batteries suffer from a phenomenon known as "memory". To keep them in good shape, they should always be fully discharged prior to recharging. Life expectancy 1000-1200 charges.

• NiMH - is the next generation after NiCad. The "memory" effect is almost totally removed. Life expectancy 1000-1200 charges.

• Li-Ion - Lithium Ion batteries are predominantly used to power small electronics devices like mobile phones and laptop computers because they can store a tremendous amount of energy for their size. This makes them smaller and lighter than an equivalent NiCad or NiMH but also substantially more expensive. No memory effect. Life expectancy 800-1000 charges.

All rechargeable batteries need proper care, but the expense of a rechargeable light system is soon recouped against the savings made from not having to continuously buy standard batteries.

Prices tend to range from about £20.00 up to about £300.00

Best used for commuting and longer night time rides.

LED (Light Emitting Diode) lights

The LED is nothing new. They've been around for many many years but it wasn't until the late 1980's that there use was integrated into bicycle lighting. The beauty of an LED is the amount of directional light that it emits for an extremely low energy input meaning that LED lights can operate for in excess of 100 hours on a single set of batteries.

Initially, only rear lights were made with LED's owing to the lack of a "white" LED at a suitable cost. Early models featured constant light output and a pulsing output mode (flashing) but later models began to incorporate more noticeable flashing sequences.

Early front LED lights used yellow or green LEDs but these were not particularly popular. Recently, the white LED has become more affordable and has now made its' way into these lights.

Now for the negative!  Technically, as UK law stands at the moment, the use of an LED light as a sole means of lighting is illegal because the law specifically states the use of a "filament bulb". Similarly, the law precludes the display of a flashing light on anything other than emergency vehicles. The British Standard (BS6102 Pt3) which includes lighting for bicycles was updated a few years ago to allow LEDs but with certain stipulations (they must be visible from the same range of directions as a filament bulb lamp and they must not flash). The law is only just about to be updated to legalise their use.

Many cyclists know that the flashing LED offers greater visibilty and noticabilty to other road users and yet the law prevents them from being used in this fashion. HINT: Fix a constantly lit LED to the rear of your bike AND a flashing LED to yourself.

Whether LEDs make suitable front lights is debateable. Unlike filament bulb lights, LEDs do not throw a beam of light which would sufficiently light up your path. LEDs are more about being seen that actually seeing.

Prices tend to range from about £5.00 up to about £30.00

Best used for childrens bikes and any other type of riding. So economical to run you can leave them on regardless of the light conditions to aid being seen by other road users.

Dynamos

The dynamo is come of age!

By far the most economical form of lighting, the dynamo has evolved quite dramatically over recent years.

The generator (dynamo) generally take one of two forms, either internal hub mounted or tyre drive bottles.

The hub dynamo is the more efficient and causes no drag because there is no friction BUT they are heavier and require specialist installation.

Tyre drive dynamos (bottle generators) simply rest against the side of the tyre and are driven via a rotating wheel which spins the dynamo armature.

What has changed most significantly with dynamo systems is the actual lights which are powered. The old problem with dynamos was that once you stopped, your lights went out, and at low speeds, insufficient energy would be generated to light the bulbs brightly enough.

Many better quality dynamo lights now feature a standby light feature. The lamp stores an amount of energy to keep the lamp lit for a period of time after the bike has stopped. This is commonly achieved by using LEDs as the standbys which are low power drain.

The real advantage of a dynamo is that you will never need to buy a battery for your lights again!

Prices tend to range from about £15.00 up to about £300.00

Best used for commuting and longer distance rides on road. NOT suitable for off road riding.