My crash last night ...

In article said:

I've been riding for 25 years, raced for 11, so it can happen to ANYONE.

slight glow from the light if I use it sparingly, but most of the time I'm riding dark. I can see
the center stripe, and any shadows ahead, so I keep it

Quoted message said:

it's fairly open and I figure I'm seeing good enough, so I open it up a little bit. It's all
straight until the bridge, so I figure I'm going about 15mph, no

The 20 year old kid seemed okay, but didn't have a helmet on and was a bit dazed the whole time, I
exchanged numbers with him, spoke with his dad after I

Quoted message said:

Wear those helmets kiddies ... you just never know.

Unlit cyclists riding on unlit trail at night collide. Both the cyclist wearing the helmet and the
one without a helmet appear to suffer similar injuries. Another cyclist with light is unhurt and
rescues both. Moral of story, wear foam hat. Using a light when riding at night is apparently not
worth mentioning.

<< Moral of story, wear foam hat. Using a light when riding at night is apparently not worth
mentioning. >>

Yeah, and I got a duo headbeam, 20/45 watt light, but didn't have a backup battery.

THAT won't happen again !

jw milwaukee

[email hidden] (J999w) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

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So I'm riding on the Glacial Drumlin trail, it's about 10pm. My headlight battery dies at Wales on
the way back, so I'm tip-toeing my way back to the car. [ 5 miles left out of a 30 mile ride] I
can see pretty good,..., so I open it up a little bit. It's all straight until the bridge, so I
figure I'm going about 15mph, no big deal.

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Quoted message said:

>*** W H A M !!!! ***<<< I hit this guy going the other way on his bike ,

head on.

...

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Wear those helmets kiddies ... you just never know.

Ah, beautiful! Dim bulb, riding in the dark, "open it up," WHAM, so wear your helmet!!!!!

I'd say: Don't be such a dim bulb. Use a generator light.

Even if you use full body armor, riding without a good light is foolish. It discredits any other
safety advice you might give.

- Frank Krygowski

Since I'm still alive, I reserve the right to respond !

I had a good light, but the battery that SHOULD have lasted...DIDN'T.

So do tell us, who makes generator lights, and who sells them ???? Please be good enough to pass
along the URL, but don't waste our time with a $12.95, 3 watt toy.It needs to be something that will
still work after 3 hours of hard riding and generates 20 to 45 watts.

I'm ready to buy, just tell me where.

John Wilke Milwaukee

J999w said:

It needs to be something that will still work after 3 hours of hard riding and generates 20 to
45 watts.

I don't know of anything that generates 20W+. Most are in the 3W to 6W range. Any good one would
last thousands of hours longer than a battery. The reason that nobody makes high wattage generators
is that few riders want to put 30W into the generator in order to get 20W of electricity.

A good hub generator setup (or even a LED headlight with its own battery) would make a nice
emergency backup for your current light. Mitch.

22 Aug 2003 14:17:13 GMT,

Quoted post said:

I had a good light, but the battery that SHOULD have lasted...DIDN'T.

Sounds like a bad light if it doesn't work when I need it. Even a 3 watt generator lamp is better
than that. It always works, always.

[email hidden] (Frank Krygowski) wrote

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The problem with those big rechargeables is that they have zero optical design. They waste most of
their light output by throwing it out in a wide fog.

[...]

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No other vehicle on the road uses such primitive optics.

Frank, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You might perhaps be thinking of high
output wide-beam lights, which are designed that way on purpose, for mountain biking. There are also
narrow-beam lights with similar output, which work very well for riding on the street. I'm glad your
generator light works for you. It must work pretty well, because you clearly know jack all about
what's available in battery powered lights these days.

CC

Corvus Corvax said:

Frank,... you clearly know jack all about what's available in battery powered lights these days.

Are you saying you have a headlamp which does not throw a circular beam? My Nitehawk throws a tight,
circular beam. While it's better than a floodlight, it's inferior to any properly designed vehicle
lamp with a defined vertical cutoff. Mitch

[email hidden] (J999w) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

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Since I'm still alive, I reserve the right to respond !

I maintain your advice was bad, given the situation. It was one more example of the typical bike
safety propaganda: "It doesn't matter how you ride, just wear your helmet."

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I had a good light, but the battery that SHOULD have lasted...DIDN'T.

That's a serious shortcoming of battery lights. On the rare occasions I use one, I carry a spare.
Sometimes a spare battery, but usually just a (small) spare headlight.

Quoted message said:

So do tell us, who makes generator lights, and who sells them ???? Please be good enough to pass
along the URL, but don't waste our time with a $12.95, 3 watt toy.It needs to be something that
will still work after 3 hours of hard riding and generates 20 to 45 watts.

First, 3 watts is not necessarily a toy. Many cyclists (at least in the US) mistakenly think high
wattage is necessary. But that's only because they can find only inadequate 1.25 watt
flashlight-style headlights, or 20+ watt rechargeable units.

The problem with those big rechargeables is that they have zero optical design. They waste most of
their light output by throwing it out in a wide fog. Of the 20 watts of light (converted to lumens,
of course) almost 50% goes up to the passing airplanes, and the other half isn't spread very
efficiently either. This comes from using hardware store MR-11 bulbs. No other vehicle on the road
uses such primitive optics.

You need a headlamp with good optics, similar to the beam shape from your car's headlight. Generator
headlights have this, because they don't have the watts to waste. In my experience, a three watt
headlight, well-focused, does fine except in extreme situations. If you want more, some generators
(not all) can be wired to deliver six watts to two lamps.

Anyway, here are some sources for generator lights:

peterwhitecycles.comindex.htmlOpen ↗

yellowjersey.orgyellowjersey.orgOpen ↗

thethirdhand.comindex.cgiOpen ↗

If you want some comparison of good beam patterns, see
fa-technik.adfc.devergleich.htmOpen ↗

- Frank Krygowski

(Frank Krygowski) said:

[email hidden] (J999w) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Since I'm still alive, I reserve the right to respond !

I maintain your advice was bad, given the situation. It was one more example of the typical bike
safety propaganda: "It doesn't matter how you ride, just wear your helmet."

Come off it, Frank. Using a helmet is completely orthogonal to any other advise regarding safety.
Nobody is going around saying what you just claimed. Why you have to lie about it is beyond me.

Certainly he should have had a working light if riding at night, but that requirement is in the
vehicle code. If he is an adult (I assume he is) then he most likely should have a driver's license
and should know the traffic laws. At least in California, the driver's handbook the DMV puts out
states that bicyclists have all the rights and responsibilities that drivers of motor vehicles have,
and that includes using lights at night.

BTW, if going somewhere where it is an issue, I'd take a spare light just in case. Almost anything
will do, even the 1.25 watt lights you disparaged, although when using one, you would have to ride
slowly or stay in relatively well-lit areas so you can see the road surface adequately. Regardless,
it is bright enough for others to see you.

On a short enough trip, I might not take a spare light, but short in this case means I'm willing to
walk home if necessary.

Bill

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden] says...

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I typically ride 3 - 4k miles per year with just under half that at night. When riding in the
city, no headlight is needed really to see the road, so yeah, I suppose 3 watts will keep the
police at bay.

Realistically, no light at all is needed to keep the police at bay, at least around here. Even many
police bikes don't have headlights on at night, and I've never seen anyone ticketed for riding
without a light.

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On dark roads at low speed or on dark trails, a 10 watt narrow beam or 20 watt flood is okay, but
going downhill 20+ mph, it's very easy to out ride your light, a 35 watt spot high beam will allow
you to ride 25mph down a hill with comfort. Even 20 watts is scary if riding a paved bike trail
after a summer storm ... there isn't enough light far enough up the trail to detect fallen
branches. (yes, even at only 12mph). A flick of the high beam will easily show if the path is
clear. It depends on where you ride.

I find my SON generator at 3W adequate for 30 mph in the rain at night, unless there's a lot of
glare from oncoming traffic. I find it puts more useful light on the road than the NiteRider
dual-beam system it replaced. The beam pattern is much narrower than the narrowest NiteRider bulb,
and it's shaped to fit a lane of traffic, rather than a simple round cone of light.

But it isn't as good for off-road, it doesn't throw light up into the trees so I don't see some
head-height dangling branches as soon. For off-road I add a helmet-mounted battery light.

I have a second lamp head for the SON that allows 6W operation at higher speeds, but it's been
sitting on the shelf for a few years, I've never felt the need to install it.

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Another BIG advantage of the 35 watt high beam is the ability to attract attention. Drivers will
often completely miss a single light comming at them (many drivers will miss seeing a car comming
at them!), but being able to flash the high beam grabs their attention. This also works on bike
paths with joggers and dog walkers on summer nights.

A lower-wattage lamp with good optics allows the same thing, except instead of turning the light on
and off, you just wiggle your existing headlight at them and away from them -- the narrow beam makes
this just as effective as turning the light on and off. (Lighthouses don't turn their lights on and
off, it just looks like it -- they just rotate a narrow beam.)

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One of the big advantages of "hardware store lamps" is the _relative_ ease of finding replacement
bulbs (yet try to find a 10watt, MR16 spot bulb on the internet to order ... good luck !! ). Good
optics are nice, but must you replace the entire assembly, or just the lamp?

Just the bulb, a dollar or two, and small enough that I keep three spares in a 35mm film can, packed
in cotton balls. Replacing the bulb takes a minute or less, and no tools are required. Bulbs usually
last me a few years -- I carry multiple spares in case one spare is bad, or in case someone else
needs a bulb.

--
[email hidden] is Joshua Putnam <http://www.phred.org/~josh/> Books for Bicycle Mechanics and
Tinkerers: <phred.orgbikebooks.htmlOpen ↗

Mitch Haley said:

Corvus Corvax said:

Frank,... you clearly know jack all about what's available in battery powered lights these days.

Are you saying you have a headlamp which does not throw a circular beam?

Yes. Mine has a rectangular pattern from a sealed-beam lamp. Another option for the same headlight
assembly was for a trapezoidal pattern, also sealed-beam but with lower wattage.

Quoted message said:

My Nitehawk throws a tight, circular beam. While it's better than a floodlight, it's inferior to
any properly designed vehicle lamp with a defined vertical cutoff.

The lamps above do have a well-defined vertical cutoff. Bought mine about 20 years ago from Bicycle
Lighting Systems.

[email hidden] (J999w) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Subject: Re: My crash last night ... From: [email hidden] (Frank Krygowski)

It was one more

Quoted message said:

example of the typical bike safety propaganda: "It doesn't matter how you ride, just wear your
helmet."

Make that: "no matter how you ride ... wear your helmet !"

If you're on the bike, put it on.

Sorry, that's way too simpleminded for me. It's not supported by either the data on cycling's risks,
nor the data on helmet effectiveness. It's the currently fashionable superstition, nurtured by
styrofoam salesmen.

This has been discussed ad nauseum in this forum, so I'll attempt to drop the subject - but I hope
that most cyclists realize it IS often reasonable to ride without a magic hat!

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Quoted message said:

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I had a good light, but the battery that SHOULD have lasted...DIDN'T.

That's a serious shortcoming of battery lights.

No, that's a serious shortcoming of my battery maintenance. I should have KNOWN that the battery
would not have lasted the length of my ride rather than guessed that it would.

Well, I prefer a headlight to work as it does on my car or on my motorcycle - that is, to be always
ready, with no worries about the length of the ride or the recharging regime. YMMV, I suppose.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

First, 3 watts is not necessarily a toy. Many cyclists (at least in the US) mistakenly think high
wattage is necessary. But that's only because they can find only inadequate 1.25 watt
flashlight-style headlights, or 20+ watt rechargeable units.

I typically ride 3 - 4k miles per year with just under half that at night. When riding in the
city, no headlight is needed really to see the road, so yeah, I suppose 3 watts will keep the
police at bay. On dark roads at low speed or on dark trails, a 10 watt narrow beam or 20 watt
flood is okay, but going downhill 20+ mph, it's very easy to out ride your light, a 35 watt spot
high beam will allow you to ride 25mph down a hill with comfort. Even 20 watts is scary if riding
a paved bike trail after a summer storm ... there isn't enough light far enough up the trail to
detect fallen branches. (yes, even at only 12mph). A flick of the high beam will easily show if
the path is clear. It depends on where you ride.

You need to understand that more optical efficiency is possible. Except for mountain biking on
single track, there's not much justification for throwing all that light energy around so
wastefully. Why not direct it where it's needed?

As it is, I have absolutely no problem riding 20 mph with a well-designed generator set. Sure, if
that 3 watt output were coming out of a crudely focused MR-11 bulb, it wouldn't work - but the
reflector and lens make all the difference. You should understand that there are millions of
cyclists worldwide who manage perfectly well with the equipment I describe.

Quoted message said:

Another BIG advantage of the 35 watt high beam is the ability to attract attention.

You don't need 20 watts for that. FWIW, the _most_ safety-conscious (or safety-fanatic) member of
our bike club was extremely pleased with the conspicuity of my generator set. In fact, I don't think
I've ever had a motorist fail to notice me in my nighttime commutes, which I've been doing since
about 1977.

Quoted message said:

Drivers will often completely miss a single light comming at them (many drivers will miss seeing a
car comming at them!), but being able to flash the high beam grabs their attention.

Tip: wiggle your handlebars slightly side to side. It makes your headlight appear to flash. I don't
know it's ever been really necessary, but I've never had anyone pull out in front of me.

Quoted message said:

One of the big advantages of "hardware store lamps" is the _relative_ ease of finding replacement
bulbs (yet try to find a 10watt, MR16 spot bulb on the internet to order ... good luck !! ). Good
optics are nice, but must you replace the entire assembly, or just the lamp?

I replace the bulb. It's about the size of a peanut, and I could carry a spare easily, if I chose.
But they last a long, long time. (Generators are inherently "soft start" devices.)

Quoted message said:

As far as generators ... if someone can come up with a 50 watt generator...

ABSOLUTELY not needed!

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Anyway, here's my shopping list:

- New hemet (~$150)
- Backup battery (12v 4amp hour rechargable ~ $150)
- Decent battery charger with metering to monitor state of battery charge (~ $75 ... no more 'wall
warts' for me).
- Maglight penlight for emergencies ($10).
- Another box of bandages ( $3.95)

Hmmm. Nearly $400 to take a night ride, and that doesn't include the bike!

I suppose you're providing a valuable service - helping to keep the economy going, and all that. But
you should realize it's not _really_ necessary to spend so much money to ride at night!

Many of us are enthusiasts, and willingly drop big bucks on our cycling. But we should stop
portraying our 99th-percentile equipment as _necessary_. That just puts people off cycling.

- Frank Krygowski

[email hidden] (Corvus Corvax) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] (Frank Krygowski) wrote

Quoted message said:

The problem with those big rechargeables is that they have zero optical design. They waste most
of their light output by throwing it out in a wide fog.

[...]

Quoted message said:

No other vehicle on the road uses such primitive optics.

Frank, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You might perhaps be thinking of
high output wide-beam lights, which are designed that way on purpose, for mountain biking. There
are also narrow-beam lights with similar output, which work very well for riding on the street.

"Narrow Beam" is quite relative. Most "Spot" MR-11 bulbs are on the order of 10 degrees, IIRC (See
reflectalite.comhalogenpage.htmlOpen ↗ for example), and even that "10 degrees" beam has a
very soft, fuzzy boundary. Furthermore, the beam is _round_, with as much vertical spread as
horizontal. That's useless for road riding.

A typical generator headlight concentrates the beam much more than that, and consequently makes it
much brighter. The concentration is especially greater in the vertical direction. You know, those
airplane pilots really don't care much about your bike - there's no sense signaling them!

The fuzzy-round-beam MR-11 lights do work on the street, provided you pump enough power into them to
overcome their optical deficiencies. So the penalty for having crude optics is to have an expensive
battery, an expensive charger, a limited run time, and the chore of looking after your batteries.

Hell, if you're going to have a 20, or 35, or 50 watt system (which some have called minimum
acceptable), why not just ride a moped? After all, it takes only about 50 watts of mechanical power
to move a bicycle at 12 mph!

Quoted message said:

I'm glad your generator light works for you.

Yep. Me and a few million other cyclists!

- Frank Krygowski

[email hidden] (J999w) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

It's not supported by either the data on cycling's risks, nor the data on helmet effectiveness.
It's the currently fashionable superstition, nurtured by styrofoam salesmen.

Riiiiiight ...

Hey, more power to 'ya ... the Neurosurgical ICU in the hospital I work at has been a little slow,
come on over and I'll show you some great technical trails you can try ... and maybe boost the
business for my employer as well.

All are welcome in the ICU !!!

Please, go through your neuro ICU and see what percentage of the patients got damaged on bicycles,
as opposed to in autos, in their homes, etc.

National data says it should be about 50% autos, 40% in-home falls, and less than 1% bikes.

This has been confirmed by physicians and other brain-trauma specialists with whom I've conversed or
corresponded.

But please, do let us know if your facility is somehow different than the rest of the nation!

- Frank Krygowski

Peter <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<T0f2b.250433$YN5.171331@sccrnsc01>...

Quoted message said:

Mitch Haley said:

[In response to:] Are you saying you have a headlamp which does not throw a circular beam?

Yes. Mine has a rectangular pattern from a sealed-beam lamp. Another option for the same headlight
assembly was for a trapezoidal pattern, also sealed-beam but with lower wattage. ...

The lamps above do have a well-defined vertical cutoff. Bought mine about 20 years ago from
Bicycle Lighting Systems.

I think I remember those. A one-man operation, selling lights intended for tractors, and rear
flashers intended for traffic barricades, right?

How long has he been out of business?

- Frank Krygowski

In article <[email hidden]>, Raptor <[email hidden]> wrote:

[snip]

Quoted message said:

Don't ride at night if you can avoid it or have good lights. (I was riding in the dark because my
buddy used a condom for a rear inner tube and got four flats on the trail, delaying us. I was
high-tailing it for the cars.)

And what does your buddy use rear inner tubes for? Don't tell me...
--
Trudi "Closed Due to Blackout. Pray for the Chocolate!" --sign in Cleveland store, 8/14/03
____
Say NO to secret judging and corruption in skating -- support SkateFAIR! skatefair.orgskatefair.orgOpen ↗

I knew the original post, with its exhorting wear-a-helmet conclusion, was bound to draw all the
knee-jerk anti-helmetists out of the woodwork. But really, even as a non-anti-helmet person, it
seems silly to me to advocate people wearing helmets OVER using lights at night.

If I could use only one protective device for night driving--assuming there were no laws requiring
me to do either--I would pick the lights over the helmet. Being seen is the priority at night. You
guys helped drill that one into my head. The more likely you are to be seen, the less likely you are
to be rammed into in the first place. And I know how terrified I am when I see other night cyclists
with no lights, because nine times out of ten these are the same clowns who are riding on the wrong
side of the street.

A while back, I was going to go riding at night and discovered much to my dismay that my headlight
was out and I had no batteries around. I stayed home that night. I suppose I could have bungeed my
flashlight to the handlebars, but I decided it was too much trouble.
--
Trudi "Closed Due to Blackout. Pray for the Chocolate!" --sign in Cleveland store, 8/14/03
____
Say NO to secret judging and corruption in skating -- support SkateFAIR! skatefair.orgskatefair.orgOpen ↗

Frank Krygowski said:

Peter <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<T0f2b.250433$YN5.171331@sccrnsc01>...

Quoted message said:

Mitch Haley said:

[In response to:] Are you saying you have a headlamp which does not throw a circular beam?

Yes. Mine has a rectangular pattern from a sealed-beam lamp. Another option for the same headlight
assembly was for a trapezoidal pattern, also sealed-beam but with lower wattage. ...

The lamps above do have a well-defined vertical cutoff. Bought mine about 20 years ago from
Bicycle Lighting Systems.

I think I remember those. A one-man operation, selling lights intended for tractors, and rear
flashers intended for traffic barricades, right?

Yes, as I recall he was a lawyer working on Uniform Motor Vehicle code issues among other things.

Quoted message said:

How long has he been out of business?

Probably 10 - 15 years. The lights were a design that only a commuter could love - big and clunky
appearance but effective.