Offroad lights on a budget

[barry2017]

What are you using, guys? There is some brilliant offroading near where I am until summer, but with the nights still long I need some offroad lights. My commuter ones will kill me.

Is it realistic to go under £70 for something that:

Is bright
Lasts up to a couple of hours.
Is well made.

I have seen the Hope ONE which looks nice, but is it any good?

 

[jimo746]

Personally I was going for a Hope One as well, know someone who has one and it should be enough for the amount of riding on/off road that I do in the dark.
However, have a look on here for the "ebay bike lights" thread, I just received mine in the post and they're pretty bloody good to be honest I paid about £11 for 2 lights, and I reckon they may just do for a bit of offroading at night too

 

[mikee]

yup try the cheap e-bay ones
about £18 for 3
work a treat

the old halogen lupines/etc off of e-bay thing is summat to consider too
i got mine for £50
work a treat too

 

[Tad]

I have a Hope 1 and a Hope 2 bought from a local Hellfrauds clearance sale for £25 and £50 respectively.

The one is brilliant and bar mounted is perfect for canal and bridle paths. I use it helmet mounted with the 2 bar mounted off road. Helmet mounted it's not so great, the exposure lights are better suited as they are smaller and lighter (but I wasn't going to get one of those quite so cheap).

The big plus of the Hope LED 1 for me is that it takes AA batteries. I use 2700mAh and they last for hours. On really long rides you can carry spares. The downside of the exposure lights is that they have a lithium ion cello built in, you have to charge the whole light up rather than carry spare batteries. The bargain ebay bike lights in LGFs thread are brilliant for the money but the draw back for me is that they use (3 I think) AAA batteries which don't have the capacity of an AA. They quote 900 lumens but are about as bright as the Hope 1 (300 lumens) it's either over ambitious output claims or down to reflector design.

In short, the Hope is brilliantly made and very robust but pricey. For the same money you could have 6 or 7 of the bargain ebay bike lights, a few sets of AAA NimH batteries and just chuck the lights away if they break.

 

[barry2017]

I have some Chinese ones on the way.

Sorry Hope.

 

[kaiser]

This gets good reviews

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/New-Type-SSC-P7-C ... 5505wt_905


I believe orange71 and a few others that ride with him have them. I'd couple that with something like this on the helmet.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Waterproof-Cree-Q ... 4365wt_905


you would need to go for the specific batteries though.

 

[Tad]

I have some Chinese ones on the way.

Sorry Hope.

Chris, you're Hopeless.

see what I did there?

 

[BarneyRubble]

Try Dealtime extreme. They have some really good lights for very reasonable prices. My Brother has a set and they are brilliant. Quality might not be as high as some of the more famous brands, but at 1/4 of the price they are still worth it.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/ha-iii-ssc ... -set-25149

 

[barry2017]

I have some Chinese ones on the way.

Sorry Hope.

Chris, you're Hopeless.

see what I did there?

Marvellous.

Well, it turns out I've accidentally bought 5 of them.

Night becomes day in Cannock Chase.

 

[orange71]

Try Dealtime extreme. They have some really good lights for very reasonable prices. My Brother has a set and they are brilliant. Quality might not be as high as some of the more famous brands, but at 1/4 of the price they are still worth it.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/ha-iii-ssc ... -set-25149

yep can't speak highly enough of these. Had mine 18 months now, superb value (£50 to your door), rugged design (survived a crash where I broke several ribs and banged myself up pretty badly), battery lasts 3+ hours.