On Feb 11, 10:32 am, [email hidden] wrote:
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Quoted message said:Motorcycle headlights are suitable for 70 mph. Why on earth would an
ordinary bicyclist need that?
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- Frank Krygowski
I'm certainly down with most of what yer saying Frank. If I thought it
was dangerous, like eating raw lettuce from a fast food joint, I
wouldn't do it.
BUT,
the deal with wanting your lights to be as bright as the motor
vehicles around makes sense, you want other road users... read morons
with motors, to perceive you as another vehicle, not stationary
illumination like the strobe light in the dry-cleaners window that
flashes long after closing time. I like it bright. The lights on
your bike, no matter how bright they are, couldn't be too bright as
the motorist you share the road with aren't. And your light must
overcome their dimness. Even when you're not in the high traffic areas
a big circle of light on the pavement in front of you improves your
visibility from the rear, just like lighting up the bumper in front of
you does in traffic. I got myself a tail light or two just the same
tho.
But unlike most of the people that are telling you that your lights
should be brighter I ain't trying to sell ya anything. Be bright but
be thrifty too. You've already got a 3 or 4 cell mag lite (or so I
would bet), a little foam & old inner tube ought to fix that to yer
bars pretty securely and come off easily - Go for the Luxon LED
upgrade though - it will be brighter than most of the sub $100 lights
at the bike store. If your boss subsidies your battery expense it's
all the better to use D-cells.
What I've done for the last several years is to carry a "running
lamp"... you know like a fog lamp, only with a slightly narrower
focus. I bought it at the auto parts store, but don't get your
battery there, get a deep cycle 12V number (look over by the deer
feeders), then you can use a regular 1 amp tickle charger to juice it
up. Make sure that the battery is big enough that you don't burn
more than about 60% of it on your regular trip. You ain't gotta be an
E-squared to figure it out - just divide the watts by the volts and
thats how many amps it will draw. You can use any bulb on the self,
but the kit contains a lens too... and you do want your light focused
a bit more that just sticking it in the back of a polished juice can
provides. Although, like most things if you throw way more power at
it you can probably overcome a lack of finesse.
Mine is a 36W halogen, I've had people comment to me that they didn't
know what the $#% i was when they saw me from a distance... (but they
did see me from a distance - so I win). One gal told me she thought a
I was a motorcycle, so she waited to pull out in front of me... but as
she was waiting for me to go by it dawned on her that I was going
really slow, but she still didn't pull out because she wanted to wait
and find out what I was. Being an unidentified rolling object is
better than being immediately identified as something squishy that
might not even scratch the paint. At night people think I may be a
tractor and give me way more room than they do when they see that I am
mostly flesh and less metal than is in one of their seats.
