Back in my days I simply googled my way through the nomenclature of batteries. I feel pretty old, somehow.
They're not user-serviceable by design but I've been pondering cracking them open and having a go at swapping the batteries. This post may inspire me.
I've got a pile of new 18650s lying around and hopefully the front lights use those!
Specific batteries go in and out of production. But as long as it's the same CHEMISTRY, voltage, and capacity, it's likely compatible. Chemistry tends to set the voltage, size sets the capacity.
Charge/discharge controllers and algorithms are based on these three bits of info.
In some cases, some chemistries are actually compatible with other chemistries. NiHM cells are largely backwards compatible with Ni-Cd chargers (but not vice versa). It's not good for the NiHM but they will actually take the charge.
Well done!
Not having to charge anything or worry about batteries running out in the dark is a real benefit.
It's all on the very opposite end of the cost spectrum than the cheap bike light in this post though
They're just generic AC motors held against the rim, as simple and cheap as it gets. Nowadays I'd add a basic voltage regulation circuitry to get a stable 5V DC out of it.
You'll spend more time futzing with one of or dealing with weather-related failures that you would have saved more time charging a pile of batteries before every ride.
I have rigged all kinds of rubber contraptions to make them work better, I have made my own dynamos from old electric motors as a kid, and yet I have never in all those decades found a way to be sure they would work when I need them, never.
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/hubs-front/shimano-nexus-dhc3000...
Dynohub history rabbit hole for those interested:
No, it's about a tenth of that, light included.
I explored dynohubs in the past, but LEDs and LiPo batteries have really narrowed the gap. In my garage, I've got a super long USB cable that we all use for charging our lights. I've used cheap lights from AliExpress, and they are actually quite durable.
bikepackers aren't an homogeneous population. Some are more instagrammers than bikepackers and are using expensive bikes and equipment, others bikepack on a shoestring budget with stuff from the thrift stores and you could mistake them for homeless. And finally some are actually homeless. And you get any kind of budget and requirement/vanity level inbetween these 2 extremes.
This summer while I was cycling I came accross an ukranian guy who was bikepacking accross europe with an old mtb from the 90's, using an old kids trailer to carry his gear and water supply. He was stranded in a climb in the middle of nowhere with a broken wheel, 3 or 4 spokes had given up the ghost, and the tire was flat you could see the casing instead of the tread on both wheels. We could only communicate using google translate on my phone but he told me straight nomoney. His tent, which he had setup on the side of the road to have a bit of shade could have come from a dumpster judging by its state and discoloration, that tent was 20 to 30y old. Since my daughter has a folding bike with 20" wheels and I was 20 minutes from home I convinced him to give me his wheel, filled his empty water bottle with my own, gave him some snacks and went back home to check if spokes length matched any of my daughter's bike wheel and relaced quickly his wheel using 4 spokes from my daughter's. Then I climbed back that climb with the repaired wheel, 2 tires from my daughter's bike, a veggie sandwich and 4L of water (having myself a bike that is bikepack ready made it easier) so he could eat something and set off. He paid me with what he had available: a big hug and proposed to help me with my back (I understood he was some kind of chiropractor) which I declined.
Also: not all lights require soldering to change the battery. Some brands, like Fenix, offer lights where you can change the battery on the go.
I had a light from a lesser known Taiwanese brand - an INFINI Lava 500. At some point it stopped working, so I took it apart with my iFixit kit and inside was a 102660 battery (1700mAh instead of the advertised 2600mAh), so I bought a 102560 unit - 10mm thick, 25mm wide and 60mm long (supposedly).
It was a good few millimetres longer and didn't fit. What's worse - AliExpress stopped shipping batteries to my address, because due to safety regulations you can't ship batteries via airmail, it's just that one vendor who chanced it, so now I couldn't even buy a smaller replacement.
Local vendors didn't have anything nearly the same format, so I gave up and bought a LEZYNE LED Macro Drive 1300XL. Inside there are two 18650s wrapped in a pack that has a plug, so should they die, you can replace the battery without soldering.
On so many occasions I would get blinded by overly bright lights of an incoming cyclist during late evening ride.
For instance: Round beams suck. The first LED front light I ever bought was nothing more than a flashlight that took 3 AAA cells and attached to a handlebar mount.
It produced a round beam. If I aimed it up/far enough ahead that I could see the road ahead in any meaningful capacity, then it was also blinding to other riders and people in cars.
I could aim it down some and limit others' exposure, but then it was useless at letting me see what I needed to see, myself.
The most recent front light I have came from Walmart, and was sold in Schwinn packaging. It's rechargeable. With this light, other people have zero direct exposure to the LED because it is occluded by the housing.
It uses optics to shape the light. A curved mirror, and AFAICT a lens are inside. The beam it produces is shaped to evenly illuminate my path and it has a very sharp horizontal cutoff.
It's a very sensible design, in that when I aim it at the road so I can best see, other people's eyes are above the cutoff so they aren't blinded by glare. Everyone wins.
But not every bike light has a sensible design. And not every rider has sensible intent.
(The Germans have standards for this stuff enshrined in StVZO, wherein: Stuff like beam shape and cutoff is governed by law. Searching for StVZO lights tends to yield good results.)
It is indeed unregulated and often blinding. But there is also no one limited use case as it can be for car lights:
- these lights are sold internationally so they don't assume one specific country in the first place
- it's not just for road use, people will use them in rougher bike paths where there might be absolutely no other light.
- seeing the path forward isn't often enough. You don't have a windshield nor can assume a cleared path, so knowing what's at head level can also be crucial. Even on dedicated bike paths there will be branches and unmaintained/unexpected bits that need avoiding.
- being seen can be as important as seeing yourself, and often back lights are small and a pain to recharge. Many customers will want a wide spread front light that reflect all around, even if it mean charging it more often etc.
All in all, it might be that biking itself is wholly unregulated so lights will have a hard time being single purpose and regulated as well.
Wonder if this kind of stuff can trickle down to bicycles and motorcycles and you only light what's important in front of you. This could be to light more stuff so you can see it, or less stuff and save power while seeing what's important.
It's probably this way because companies design products to cater to their customers, who would likely prefer a Damn Bright Light to feel like they got their money's worth.
It's because 99% of bike lights are basically just flashlights, spraying light everywhere. The solution is the same as for cars — lights with horizontal cut-offs.
I think Germany has regulations on this. I've bought lights on AliExpress that have a cut-off.
Having some movement can be good, though. This is why I went out of my way to mount reflectors on the back side of my aftermarket pedals.
Along with a constant red tail light. And a fixed red reflector.
(A grown-ass man with reflectors on his bike? You betcha. The dork disc is still intact, too. I don't like crippling surprises, and I'll look way better with a safer bike than I ever can in the hospital.)
So if you are blinded by an incoming cyclist this is not legal... of course enforcement is another matter.
Those are on the expensive side, but still, most brands would rather sell you a new one.
I wonder how many people just chucked the unit when the battery wore out.
I replaced a lezyne light battery too. There was no point buying a complete light, send this one to waste when I could just look up for the actual reference in a search engine, find the correct one and replace it.
It is not about money, it ia about not sending unneeded stuff to waste management, which we pay for actually.
1. Reflectors are the best for baseline visibility, they cost nothing and are reliable.
2. The tail light is the important one.
a) Try to find ones with a pulsating mode, blinding other road users by shining bright rapidly blinking lights into their eyes is not good, actually.
b) If you've got the money, consider a radar instead.
3. For the front, decide if you *need* illumination strong enough for you to see where you're going in darkness, or if you can get away with just being seen by others.
a) For the former, make sure you get a front light that has a beam cutoff, preferably a lens-based solution. Then of course, install the light with a proper downwards angle, otherwise there's no point to the cutoff.
4. Side visibility is important, this is usually accomplished by some see-through parts at the business end of the light.
5. DO NOT use blinking modes at night. Blinking is for daytime, use only constant or at most, pulsating modes at night.
6. BTW, the 2nd most important piece of equipment after your tail light is a mirror (>=2inch diameter).
• If biking casually or without a need for strong front light, honestly just get the cheapest lights you can get + some reflectors. Having any light at all gets you 99% there.
• Magicshine lights in general, I myself have the EVO 1300 for front and the SeeMee 300 for back. Proper lensed beam cutoff for the front, pulsing modes for the back, and good side visibility for both.
• Bontrager Flare RT for the back — small but powerful thanks to its focused beam. They also seem to have a front positional version but I haven't tried it.
Having steady rear lights mounted at the socks/ankles is the way to go. The movement of the feets makes you instantly recognisable and standing out from very far away. There is a (australian I believe?) company that sell pedals with integrated lights too but I can't remember the name.
I am still using a regular rear light powered by a dynamo hub though, as batteries can always die without warning.
Can you explain this? What is this and how does it replace a taillight?
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/group-tests/best-radar-bike-li...
Radars don't push cars away from cyclists.
They are more a placebo than anything really.
These lights would have predated the private equity era but I'm guessing sourcing options were somewhat more limited back in 2016.
Between that, and selling out to a foreign-private-equity-held holding, and the incident during which an innocent shopper who came to return an item was attacked by a security guard, and the idiotic Vancouver location with no connection between underground parking and the store room, I decided never to set foot there again.
Fuck MEC, the Mountain Equipment Coo^H^Hompany! Not the MEC you knew.
The wider point stands though: a bike light is a battery, an LED, and a switch, and the battery dying first is the most repairable failure mode there is.
Reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button_cell#Type_designation would have indicated a solution: The third character must be an R (for rechargeable), the “77” would be the height in tenths of millimeters (which makes for a good plausibility check), and then you can measure the cell’s diameter to obtain the remaining digits in the middle.