After looking at commercially made headlights - which are either very bright but expensive, heavy,
and very short on the runtime, or dim but cheap - I decided to roll my own. Keep in mind that I have
great night vision, and the suburbs I ride are usually fairly well lit.
The headlight consists of three ganged - that's right, I said three - small 6-volt flashlights that
take flange based bulbs. The lights are sold at Family Dollar as mini-lanterns for a buck each; the
case is clear plastic w/ many colors available. I chose yellow, to maximize side visability. By
themselves, the beam is a tight spot with a small amount of scatter. Ganged as they are in my setup,
it's a wide beam with quite a bit of usable scatter. I removed the attached wire handle/stand from
each light, and installed 6- volt K13 krypton bulbs in each. Then I mounted them onto a short piece
of 1" PVC tube; two to each side and one on top. Overriding the internal switch in each, I wired
them in parrelel to a bar mounted toggle switch, which feeds power from a 6-volt, 4ah gel cell. The
set is mounted onto a reflector mount which is bolted onto the fork arch over the brake. It's almost
as bright as a lowbeam motorcycle headlight, managing to illuminate reflectors at about 1/8 mile on
a clear night. I've gotten 3 hours operation out of it between charges, with plenty left over.
Two LED taillights - one steadyburning, one set to flash - and amber tireflys complete the setup.
In operation, I've been able to see and avoid all the normal death cookies - grills, manholes,
beercans and other junk, roaving cats and dogs, teenagers walking the streets after dark, kids on
bikes after dark, ect... And a lot of respect from drivers. Could be the unusual three-beam
headlight, could be that I'm lit up like a Xmas tree, but drivers don't cut me off, and even slow
down until I pass. Now how cool is that?