New CCFL, 26650, 18650, or 3AA

On 6/30/2020 10:08 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Tuesday, 30 June 2020 17:43:27 UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/30/2020 12:25 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
I've been told in this very newsgroup that lumens are
not important and that beam pattern is what determines quality.

Not by me, you haven't. Obviously, if the lumen output is too low even
the best beam pattern won't work. You can test that with a good German
headlight and a dead battery.

What is true is that most bike lights in America use beam patterns as
primitive as a stone axe. And many try to make up for that by blasting
out insane numbers of lumens. Those may be OK for mountain biking, but
they're inefficient and sometimes abusive to others on roads or MUPs.

Even 60 lumens, properly focused, gives a luxurious amount of light for
almost all bicycle riding conditions. There's no real reason for
hundreds and hundreds of lumens in an on-road bike light.

--
- Frank Krygowski

There is if if you are riding a dark country road at night and want to see critters a fair distance away so that you don't startle them. Sixty lumens is nowhere near enough light for the roads I ride around here at night. I want to see the skunks before I startle them.

A friend and I had a skunk experience several months ago. This is the
guy (a naturalist) who likes to ride a quiet and very dark local MUP on
nights near the full moon.

We were riding when we saw something white that appeared to be
fluttering along maybe a foot above the trail. We slowed down as we
tried to figure out what it was. A big low-flying moth? But as we got
closer we saw it was a skunk.

We slowed down to skunk speed for maybe 20 yards until it turned left
and headed into the woods.

As usual, your needs/wants vary from a lot of others.

I'm sure that's true. I'm also sure my needs jibe nicely with those of
millions of other cyclists. Somehow, people rode bikes at night for
generations before multi-hundred lumen headlights appeared. The B&M dyno
lights I use are far better than what many Paris-Brest-Paris competitors
used just 15 years ago.

I'm not saying they're ideal for off-road use. But I love these things
for normal road riding.

--
- Frank Krygowski