entry level lights to see by

On Jan 9, 4:03*pm, Andreas Oehler wrote:
Sun, 06 Jan 2013 07:33:47 -0800, sms:

On 12/29/2012 5:59 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:

snip

The advantage of Dan' lights is that they are easily transferred to different bikes.

That's one of many advantages over the Philips Saferide:

1. Easily transferable
2. Far less expensive
3. Greater light output
4. Strobe mode
5. Usable as a repair light
6. Widely available

Drawbacks: Falling from the handlebar to the concretet floor one time -
the front cover breaks. The edge of the front cover blinds the user.
See:http://velo.dyndns.eU/bilder/philips...sbblnacht1.jpg

Andreas

I love the partisanship of Andreas Oehler, who is an employee of
Schmidt Maschinenbau, the makers of the Edelux, built with parts
sourced from Busch & Muller; if BUMM cuts them off, they're dead in
the water. Who will believe Oehler will ever tell us the truth about
BUMM lamps? Oehler not only comments freely on competitive products,
he pretends to be unbiased, conducting tests published in German
magazines, which of course always finds his own product (Edelux) and
the products of his component suppliers (Busch & Muller) superior to
everyone else's product. If a British or American writer had the
impertinence -- actually the goddamn cheek -- to commit such acts of
blatantly compromised conflicts of interest, he'd be shouted down by
everyone on RBT, and if he were an engineer, as Oehler is, is seems
quite likely his professional body would direct him to more
appropriate behaviour on pain of penalties.

Tell us then, Andreas, does an Edelux not break if you drop it? You
use limp plastic lenses, then, the kind that deforms rather than
shatters?

As for the other matter you raise with such lipsmacking righteousness,
the reason BUMM's IQ Cyo lamps, and the Edelux which shares those
optics, can't even spare a little light to let the rider know they're
on is that they are so badly designed, in the opinion of many, that
they cannot spare adequate light to illuminate the verge of the road,
never mind the thorny gorse or the ditch you're about to fall into.

I was just sitting here, thinking about scrapping my Cyo and Fly -- I
was never silly enough to pay the hefty loading for the marginal
advantage the Edelux offers over the Cyo -- because their dire
shortcomings continually **** me off, and risk my eyes and skin in
situations their designers should have foreseen, and replacing them
with the new LED MR16, since I have good experience with the MR11 and
MR16 coming forward from the days of halogen, when they left BUMM and
Schmidt lamps for dead. Hearing you gloating about an unfortunate
event happening to a competitor -- some clumsy oaf dropped his lamp
and broke it, gee -- has quite made up my mind to investigate if the
under-$10 MR16 doesn't perchance still leave the Edelux and Cyo and
Fly for dead.

As a publicist, dear Andreas, you should to stick to engineering.
Every time I've seen you in action, you've had precisely the opposite
effect to your intention.

Andre Jute

On 1/8/2013 7:49 PM, Jay Beattie wrote:

I also use a siren, just in case. http://www.policebikestore.com/sirens.htm

While sirens are technically not legal, I did have on on a commute bike.
When I touched the button it was a horn sound but if I had held the
button down for a long time it would have cycled through siren modes.

The issue is that there are not really any good 12V non-air horns for
bicycles that emit at least 115dB. The Airzound is one manual air horn
that works well, but it was much more expensive since I already had a
12V lighting system. The other thing that works well for commuting is
the air powered boat horns. Since you don't need to use the horn all
that much, the fact that the cartridges are disposable is not that big a
deal.

Good front lights, day and night, have greatly reduced the need to use
an air horn because errant drivers are far less likely to cut off a
cyclist that has a front strobe in the daytime, or bright solid lights
at night.

A PA system is another option, such as something from Federal Signal,
i.e. http://www.fedsig.com/products/109/pa300. You can just use the
horn function. You need a high wattage speaker for this.

When I volunteer for the band tournament that our high school hosts
(traffic and parking coordinator), I have to be on a bike to zip around
and the PA system is very helpful.

I didn't realize that there were bicycle specific sirens like the one
you use on your bike, but if it helps you be safe, then go for it.

On 1/9/2013 1:05 PM, Andre Jute wrote:

snip

As for the other matter you raise with such lipsmacking righteousness,
the reason BUMM's IQ Cyo lamps, and the Edelux which shares those
optics, can't even spare a little light to let the rider know they're
on is that they are so badly designed, in the opinion of many, that
they cannot spare adequate light to illuminate the verge of the road,
never mind the thorny gorse or the ditch you're about to fall into.

I think that the mindset of designers is that high power LEDs are simply
a substitute for an incandescent bulb, and that nothing else needs to
change in terms even though the functionality of an LED enables much
better lights, both in terms of beam shape and in modes.

I was just sitting here, thinking about scrapping my Cyo and Fly -- I
was never silly enough to pay the hefty loading for the marginal
advantage the Edelux offers over the Cyo -- because their dire
shortcomings continually **** me off, and risk my eyes and skin in
situations their designers should have foreseen, and replacing them
with the new LED MR16, since I have good experience with the MR11 and
MR16 coming forward from the days of halogen, when they left BUMM and
Schmidt lamps for dead. Hearing you gloating about an unfortunate
event happening to a competitor -- some clumsy oaf dropped his lamp
and broke it, gee -- has quite made up my mind to investigate if the
under-$10 MR16 doesn't perchance still leave the Edelux and Cyo and
Fly for dead.

The MR16 lamps are better than almost any purpose built LED dynamo lamp
because of what they _didn't_ try to do. They didn't try to shape the
beam to a non-optimal shape for the conditions that most people bicycle
under. Whenever you hear someone extol the benefits of a narrow beam
that doesn't illuminate the sky or the bushes, you know that they
probably aren't big night time cyclists. If they were, they'd know how
important it is to illuminate off to the sides, as well as a bit up.

I'm sure the Edulux is fine product, at least in terms of build quality,
but the bottom line is that very few people will spend $200 just for a
headlight, then spend more for the a dynamo hub wheel. The beam from the
Edelux looks long and narrow. This isn't ideal for most cyclists because
it's not illuminating sufficiently off to the sides; good discussion of
this at http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-697184.html.

As to whether he should be promoting his company's products here, I
think that everyone here knows who he works for so it's not such a big
deal, though he really should include a disclaimer in posts related to
his employer.

On 09/01/13 16:58, SMS wrote:
On 1/8/2013 6:42 PM, James wrote:

Just like your flag will make any difference, right?

Daytime lights and the Flash Flag make a huge and observable difference
in the behavior of drivers.


Oh, yeah. I'll tell the two riders in front of me yesterday, one with a
daytime bright strobe, who screamed at the driver that wasn't going to
stop and give way to them.

I'm certain a flag would have made *all* the difference.

--
JS

On 10/01/13 04:03, Phil W Lee wrote:
sms considered Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:18:01
-0800 the perfect time to write:

On 1/8/2013 7:49 PM, Jay Beattie wrote:

I also use a siren, just in case. http://www.policebikestore.com/sirens.htm

Is that legal? I prefer a loud horn.

Since when has legality bothered you, with your flashing overbright
lights with no proper beam pattern?


The only time I get annoyed by bicyclists front lights are the helmet
mounted variety. When they look at you, you get the full brunt of their
lux output.

Most with bright/powerful handlebar mounted lights aim them at the road,
and it's only the relatively weak side spill that gets to other road
users eyes.

--
JS.

On 1/9/2013 2:00 PM, James wrote:

The only time I get annoyed by bicyclists front lights are the helmet
mounted variety. When they look at you, you get the full brunt of their
lux output.

Most with bright/powerful handlebar mounted lights aim them at the road,
and it's only the relatively weak side spill that gets to other road
users eyes.

This is true. I never understood the appeal of helmet mounted lights for
road cycling, at least unless it's a secondary light that's in addition
to bar mounted front lights.

The side spill, weaker than the illumination directly in front of the
bicycle, is very important, and it's a relatively recent development in
bicycle lights since the older lights were designed to minimize side
spill and direct the limited light output straight ahead.

Ironic that a weakness of LEDs, the difficulty of doing a narrow beam
LED lamp, is actually a benefit when it comes to bicycle lights.

On 1/9/2013 1:53 PM, James wrote:

Oh, yeah. I'll tell the two riders in front of me yesterday, one with a
daytime bright strobe, who screamed at the driver that wasn't going to
stop and give way to them.

I'm certain a flag would have made *all* the difference.

A example of one is meaningless. I find it rather amusing when I see
vehicles make a wide arc around me when they pass. Even though it's
probably because they're terrified of getting their vehicle scratched by
the flag, not because they care about hitting a bicyclist. The other
time the flag is useful is when on narrow multi-use paths since other
bicycles passing you (in either direction) don't try to squeeze by in
too narrow of a space.

Similarly, daytime bright strobes aren't going to stop all errant
behavior by drivers, but they definitely have a big effect.

The daytime front strobe and the flash flag have two completely
different purposes. The flag is mainly to discourage vehicles from
passing you too closely on the left (or on the right if you're in a
country where they drive on the wrong side of the road). The daytime
front strobe discourages vehicles from turning left in front of you, or
pulling out in front of you from a driveway or street parking. It has
the most effect in a cluttered environment. Also, with the increase of
vehicles with DRLs, standing out as a cyclist is even more difficult
than in the past. The NHTSA even noted this problem (for motorcycles)
stating that the increase of DRLs on cars and trucks has reduced the
effectiveness of DRLs on motorcycles, which have been using them for far
longer.

Andre Jute wrote:
Oehler not only comments freely on competitive products, he
pretends to be unbiased, conducting tests published in German
magazines,

He publishes test scenario, parameters and resulting data for
everyone to base his own conclusions on those, a common practise for
engineers. You might now agree on the test scenario, the general
view in Germany tends to see them as plausible.


Tell us then, Andreas, does an Edelux not break if you drop it?

The context is fixed mount vs. easily detachable. The drawback of
the latter is the higher risk to drop it while putting it on/off.


--
Best regards
helmut springer panta rhei

On 10/01/13 10:15, Helmut Springer wrote:

The context is fixed mount vs. easily detachable. The drawback of
the latter is the higher risk to drop it while putting it on/off.


I agree.

The easily detachable lights and things that require regular detachment
for charging batteries (lights and Garmin bike computers for example)
are more prone to being dropped than things that are designed to remain
fixed in position, that is for sure.

--
JS

On a