Recommendations for new Rear Light

[Biggsy]

A bright rear red light identifies you as a vehicle and makes you more visible at times when Scotchlite would not be effective - at dawn and dusk, in fog or daytime rain, on bightly lit urban streets, etc.

That said, personally, I don't feel the need for an extremely bright or big rear light except for dual carriageways and fog.

[David Martin]

It's got to be a Dinotte 400.  Although with the current crap exchange rate and getting caught by customs, mine came in at about £136   

It is ridiculously bright and comes with 6 mounts.  I'm thinking of putting it on backwards so it lights up my back   

You don't ride in a group then? Ultrabright rear lights are very much frowned upon as they really annoy the following riders.

Any normal light will do fine - pick them for durability and you should do OK.
I supplement mine with some little button sized twinklies.
..d

[TimO]

A joystick with a red LED would certainly be an interesting idea though!

Wouldn't it though?  *wistful sigh*  This is what I mean by the bling factor.

A very late refresh of this thread, because I noticed that Exposure now do rear LED lights.

However, they are not what I would like.  They do two models, the RedEye and the RedEye Micro.  They are both designed to plug into their current generation of front lights (Maxx 2 family), and vamp their power from them.  The RedEye has a cable to plug it into any front lights, and the RedEye Micro is designed to plug directly into, for example, a Joystick on a helmet.  It doesn't have a cable, so the light has to be positioned so that the front and back lights can both be usefully seen, so a helmet mounting is probably one of the few sensible locations for it.

It's a shame they haven't produced a completely stand alone version.  I particularly dislike having to run a cable from a handlebar lights to a seatpost lights, since if you firmly attach it to the tubes, you can often foul brake cable runs (and it looks like the cable is attached permanently to the rear light, so even more problems if you want to remove the light for security).

[GruB]

That is a bit of a shame really.  Why not just make a Joystick Maxx with a red lens rather than a clear / white one?

Light, easy to mount, easy to charge.  They would sell well I reckon.

[Gandalf]

I've wondered about the feasibility of fitting one of the optional red lenses to a Fenix P2D/P3D.  I havent heard of anyone doing it though.  It's also less than obvious how you would fit it.

[David Martin]

One of the advantages of using eg a cateye light is that the lens also acts as a reflector (allegedly).

I'd disagree with Lee about scotchlite - There is a range in which it is better, and a range in which a good rear light will be better (easy maths to do). Also you can't guarantee that you will be in the beams of headlights.

Any half decent LED light will show up over 1km away with fresh batts. 0.5W is excessive.

..d

[border-rider]

Any normal light will do fine

I'd agree with that.  A modern standard LED is perfectly visible to drivers at night.  Dinottes are useful in fog etc, but I'd not want to ride behind one.  Or drive behind one.

[Jaded]

Dinottes can be set at half or 1/4 brightness. Useful for when full power isn't required.  Also they last longer then. Plus if you aim them downwards, like suggested, they will only catch the eyes of bent people. 

[Hot Flatus]

Dinottes are useful in fog etc, but I'd not want to ride behind one. 

Which makes it the perfect audax light 

[ABlipInContinuity]

I think a bright rear LED is good for:

- riding in city conditions where there are lots of alternate light sources
- riding in poor visibility when it's not dark (i.e. really heavy rain, mist and fog, glare)

A single regular LED will stand out just fine to drivers hundreds of meters away if it's on it's own say on an unlit road with lower traffic volumes.

[Julian]

I've just Wiggled for two of the Smart lights.

There's so much road furniture round here that I'm being squeezed when I'm not seen in time in the dark, so I'll see if I can make some eyeballs bleed with these. 

[andygates]

Fit 'em wide, not tall, and you'll buy some space.  I think there's something in driverbrain that decides to give as much space as the gap -- a tall skinny thing gets less overtaking space.

[Biggsy]

I suspect that you are seen in time, but they squeeze you anyway.  Ride well out from the side of the road, and you'll be seen easily enough even if you have no light, on normal roads.

As a cyclist, I don't like cyclists in front of me hurting my eyeballs with their excessively bright rear lights.  My plea is: don't use them when you don't have to.  Save them for dual carriageways and fog or heavy rain, and otherwise use a more reasonable light (or less intense mode if the light has one).

[andygates]

It's not about being seen, anything gets seen, stealth ninjas get seen (how else can people complain about them?).  It's about appearing wide not thin, and letting the drivers' autobrain say "wide thing, needs a bit more space".

[Julian]

Biggsy, you're right - I've had a couple of unavoidable near-misses recently (traffic-light controlled single-lane thingies on a blind bend; I go on green, some tit has come through on bright red in the oncoming direction, particularly freaks me because a friend of mine was disabled and his pillion killed in exactly these circs a couple of years ago), which spooks me, and when I'm spooked I'm quicker to dive towards the gutter when someone revs at me or otherwise tries to intimidate, and therefore easily squeezed.  Vicious cycle.  I'm in full helmet-and-hi-viz and I'm still being freaked out by these buggers to the point where I'm more stressed by my commute than by my job!

I think knowing that I have a couple of really bright lights will bolster my confidence back up to where it should be and I'll be able to ride more confidently again.  I wouldn't use them if I was riding in a group, but my commute is through an industrial estate where there are rarely any other cyclists.

I like the wide spacing idea, Andy.  They're going on the seat stays.

[TimO]

I like the bar-end lights I've got, since as Andy says, they make you "look" wider.  Unfortunately (i) they don't seem to be for sale anywhere any more and (ii) they have an annoying habit of turning off when you go over a bump.  Unless the contact to the batteries is rock solid, the slight interruption to the power when you hit a pothole causes the device to flip into it's off mode.

One day when I'm bored, I may use the mountings to make a permanently wired up set of lights, with an inductively charged set of batteries inside the handlebars.  In the mean time, I'll have to continue to bend the battery contacts back as much as possible every time I change the cells.


Edit: Actually, Activesports claim they will sell them, although whether they have any in stock is another question (a few others, who I've never heard of, are also selling them).

[Biggsy]

Poor person's answer to bar end lights: bar end reflectors.  Actually they'll look at least as bright to the motorist (as long as they've got their headlights on).

Take ordinary chrome-look plastic bar plugs, file flat, apply 3M Diamond Grade reflective tape.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300269035994

ps.  Fair enough to get brighter lights if they give you more confidence and piss off a few bad motorists without pissing off too many cyclists! 

[frankly frankie]

Have just happened on this thread and am a bit shocked by the last few messages.  Lights spaced side by side are very bad form, on a 2-wheeled vehicle. 
Downright misleading.
Did you never hear of the little boy who cried 'wolf'? 

[andygates]

What are you talking about, bad form, crying wolf, wtf? 

We're not discussing lamps on stalks.  We're discussing lamps at the edges of the vehicle width - where most other road users have 'em.

Centre-mounted lights on two-wheelers are just easy, and habit.

[Sergeant Pluck]

Lights spaced side by side are very bad form, on a 2-wheeled vehicle

As in the twin headlight motorbike thing, in which motons see two lights approach, assume they are fitted to something the width of a car, and thus misinterpret how far away the motorbike is?

[frankly frankie]

One good light is enough (and most modern lights are good). 
By all means carry a spare, but having both on at once is just unnecessary visual pollution and might possibly be misinterpreted.

[Biggsy]

I can't imagine anyone confusing a bike for a car because it has two lights side-by-side, even for a moment.  The lights will be too close together.

[Noodley]

....having both on at once is just unnecessary visual pollution and might possibly be misinterpreted.

As what?  A 'come on' to fireflies? 

....m'lud will be aware that all cyclists are asking to be treated like this by fireflies.  What do they expect going out like that?...

[Sergeant Pluck]

I can't imagine anyone confusing a bike for a car because it has two lights side-by-side

I'm merely speculating as to Frankly Frankie's thoughts. I think he does have a point. If indeed his point is what I think it is: that drivers tend, when conditions are poor or when time to make a decision is too short, to automatically see two approaching side-by-side lights as being car lights. And thus, if they are not car lights but are one's expensive LEDs 25 cm apart on the handlebars... then the distance apart is rather a lot smaller than expected when said driver pulls out of the side road.

The same reasoning applies to rears.

[Noodley]

I am reminded of a Father Ted sketch:

small

far away