Bargain Ebay bike lights

KeepItSteel":158agqw2 said:

Im with you all the way Dr S, with the nights drawing in it becomes so frustrating that there is no daylight riding time.
With a baby at home I dont get much chance to ride until 8pm onwards...so £250 is a decent investment

Whats with the arrogance?

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Errm, there's no arrogance being shown from my point of view. Just an appreciation of a post that highlights the availability of some cheap lights that are available on ebay.

Then comes along some recommendation for some lights that cost £350.

Nowt wrong with starting a new thread about your uber wonderful lighting system. But for those of us that are broke it does feel like a situation where the bloke cartwheels through the amputee ward.

Yes, we'd all like to have the choice of buying them but circumstances mean it's not possible.

No arrogance intended on my behalf.

legrandefromage":bcp1j4ot said:

Ok i'll bite. Thankfully those people spending £200 on white tyres are few and far between. The rest of us live in the real world where budgets are not quite so generous. For £250 I could build a set of 'decent' lights and have enough change to buy a retrobike to ride with. My life depends on £8 worth of Bosch H7 bulbs every night - they work well enough.

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Yeah. I'm with you.

And thanks again for starting the thread 'cos now I can afford to ride at night cheers.

Well.. out lamping tonight, fresh (Zinc chloride) batteries and almost zero light pollution, I reckon the visibility was about 20m..

The biggest hindrance to these is, imo, probably the reflector.. but hey. . . 20m!!

If I was 'hardcore' night riding I'd probably make a larger investment but, for anything I'm likely to ever do, a couple of these will be tops...

I have some 3 quid multi led cheapies that im trying to integrate into a 15 year old cateye 6v system. They have more of a flood pattern

Pogo":3h7cw4by said:

Just an appreciation of a post that highlights the availability of some cheap lights that are available on ebay.

Then comes along some recommendation for some lights that cost £350.

Nowt wrong with starting a new thread about your uber wonderful lighting system. But for those of us that are broke it does feel like a situation where the bloke cartwheels through the amputee ward.

Yes, we'd all like to have the choice of buying them but circumstances mean it's not possible.

No arrogance intended on my behalf.

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:-D:-D:-D

Those Troute lights are immense. If I did enough night riding I would buy one without question. Funny how no one comments when someone spends £250 - £300 on a set of disc brakes, but the comments would come flying in if you spent £10.

Anyway these lights are great for the money but to offroad properly (i.e fast downhill) you do need a good few hundred lumens and these lights I would guess are around 50. I've ridden offroad with three similar power lights (two on the bars and one on the lid) and my average pace was okay but I did have to hold back alot on the downhills. I now have two Eagletac torches (one on the bars and one on the lid), both around 200 lumens (£40 ish each). With these the beam is a little tight but I get on okay with them. I can go flat out downhill on my SS on the trails I know, but on a geared bike and on unfamiliar trails I'd definitely need more light before I could really turn that big ring.

All that said it can be alot of fun with less powerfull lights. Part of the fun of riding in the dark is riding in the dark and it's not dark when you have a Troute Lumen Liberator!!!

how much? and what about the shipment fee is it included?

JamesM":mpojy2jn said:

Funny how no one comments when someone spends £250 - £300 on a set of disc brakes, but the comments would come flying in if you spent £10.

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yes it is funny when we were discussing cheap ebay lights and not white tyres or disc brakes

I quite like the bargain bucket approach , for the last few years I've been mounting a variety of torches on my bars and I've been pleased with the results, homemade setup has been in the pipeline for donkeys. DrS just always has to have the hardest,fastest,rarest,dearest stuff otherwise its just not cricket Gazz and Rado had these the other night and I reckon they're a fine base for a good system, two of them and add a headtorch.

legrandefromage":30v1boie said:

I have some 3 quid multi led cheapies that im trying to integrate into a 15 year old cateye 6v system. They have more of a flood pattern

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I have 5 of these.. got them cheaper than these ones though
Put a couple on one of the kids bikes and the rails that attach the torch to the bracket broke.. rather quickly..

Very much be seen than see where you're going in the pitch dark though

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Power-Beam-LED-Bi ... 2048wt_930

kaiser":30v1boie said:

I quite like the bargain bucket approach.

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Me too..
My hunting gear, bar my air rifle, is second hand army surplus, home made nets, collars, leads, bargain lights and knives (when ebay used to allow knives) . . .

I could save for a short while and buy high-ish end gear but I get greater gratification from sorting it out on a budget

Wanting to overpower these lights a bit now.. bet the results would be worth it