WHS reviews: Bicycle lighting guide: Guide and summary to the reviews and analysis section on my site
Guide and summary to the lighting section on my site
The lighting section on my site contains a lot of material, from analysis to reviews. The analysis section but also the early reviews tell you why certain technical aspects of products are good or bad, from LED light colour, overexposure close to you, beam pattern, vibrations from dynamo hubs etc. So after a query I decided to make this overview/summary as a guide for those new to my site who want to quickly find out what their choices are and what they should look for in products.
Contents
Updates on this page
- 2024-3-24: Added information about flickering that you may see in videos but not or less so in reality.
- 2024-2-8: I updated the section on headlamps to better describe all issues, and added a few essential issues to keep in mind that I didn't include yet for some reason such as the vision system adjusting to bright light.
- 2024-2-8: Added the section 'Judging a light from specifications?' in which I describe what you could expect from a headlamp from specifications.
- 2021-5-25: Addition of the importance of awareness on how to judge beam shots and reviews, and that beam shots are not enough to tell which light is the best. See the section "Be aware of the problems in reviews and in estimating the qualities of a light from beam shots and/or videos". This is not just needed to be able to interpret beam shots and estimate from that what you would experience in reality, but also in order to judge whether other reviewers actually understand the matter they are reviewing...
- 2021-4-7: Addition of sources to get bicycle lighting: Bicycle lamp brands vs. torch brands
- 2020-11-10: Created this page with overview of bicycle lighting.
Sources to get bicycle lighting: Bicycle lamp brands vs. torch brands
There are 2 sources from which you can obtain bicycle lights:
1. lights from brands that deal esp. with the bicycle industry,
2. lights from brands that aim their products in particular at pocket lamp/flashlight/torch enthusiasts.
How these differ:
- From the bicycle lighting sector you will get:
- Headlights almost always use cool white LEDs. Exceptions, which are all no longer produced; Herrmans H-one S 2nd version, Roxim D6, Philips Saferide 40, 60, 80 were made in neutral white versions in 2012.
Some notes: I estimate that the H-one S' LED in the neutral white version is in the 4000-4500K range, but I can't check as mine was on my stolen Cannondale Vintage and I didn't like the light's beam pattern enough to buy a new one.
The Roxim D6 has a LED light colour of probably around 5000K, pretty good, but could be improved quite a bit. The real problem with this light was that was so hard to get hold of. I don't understand why Roxim didn't put in more effort to get e.g. manufacturers to use it as standard on bicycles, it's better than most headlights that I tried, in the combination of light colour, beam pattern and the lack of artefacts and hotspots in the main section of the beam being good enough for most purposes (whereas many other lights have big weaknesses).
- Dynamo + battery powered lights. Pocket lamp/flashlight/torch producers don't make dynamo lights because they are familiar with battery power in their torches and thus the electronics required for batteries that they then use in their bike lights too. Dynamo lights are invariably underpowered, not really changing much in output since the original Edelux in 2008 which produced 180 lm at 30 km/h. Why aren't current headlights producing much more? This should already happen from more efficient LEDs, and it is possible to work around the power requirements in StVZO for more power and say 400 lm (constant) neutral white output from a dynamo at 20 km/h is possible, but no company I contacted was interested in making such dynamo lights. In general beam patterns are nowhere near optimal...
- From the pocket lamp/flashlight/torch sector sector, and from brands that are relatively unknown who are selling items on, say, Aliexpress, you can find almost exclusively battery powered lighting and more recently some of the Aliexpress sellers sell e-bike lighting.
- Many claim to be 'German compliant' but are not actually approved and don't have sharp cutoffs. Any light that has a flashing mode is NOT approved...
- Most of them use cool white light. This is even though in the pocket lamp/flashlight/torch industry there is far more attention to using neutral white LEDs and even high CRI LEDs.
- You cannot usually buy such lights in a bicycle shop. You can buy them mostly online (amazon, ebay, banggood, etc., or even the manufacturers' own websites)
Judging a light from specifications?
For cutoff beams you usually see specifications in lux as that is the main requirement for StVZO:
- 1. [ usually listed: ] The brightness for cutoff beams is measured in lux. This indicates the brightest spot at the top of the beam.
- 2. [ sometimes listed: ] The total light output which is measured in lumens,
How far can you see with it? Well that depends on the light distribution. To be able to see far a high lux rating is needed, but also the proper light distribution and more total output for a wider or longer beam. With 'how far' I mean that the beam illuminates the road well enough so that on a dark road you can make out small objects lying on the road at that distance. This doesn't mean that the beam will stand out compared to street lighting, and that isn't needed either as street lights should illuminate the road well enough for bicycling at those spots. Some examples of how far you can see with a given light, on an unlit road:
- a lux rating of ca. 40 means that you can see ca. 35 metres with it. Example: Saferide 40, ca. 40 lux and 110 lumens
- a lux rating of 80-120 with total output of ca. 260+ lumen is good enough so that you can see 60-70 m ahead with it, depending on total light output and proper light distribution.
- With a recent Contec Dlux 120 E+ e-bike light which puts out 262 lumen according to the specification and 120 lux, I can see about 60-70 metres if aimed far. This is similar to the Saferide 80 which is more like 95 lux in reality, puts out 270 lumens, and with which I can see about 70 metres ahead.
- Almost all bicycle lights that put out ca. 80 lux and in the region of 150-200 lumen such as the Herrmans H-black pro, Schmidt Edelux, Herrmans H-one S, I could see about 40-45 metres. You would be able see a bit farther with this lux rating but you would need more total light output (such as the Trelock LS905/906, I can see about 60-70 m with that)
- The Lumintop B01 bicycle lamp: ca. 800 lumen on turbo, lux rating not specified but clearly very low, has a reach of about 35 m. This lamp has a cutoff beam but it is very weak and that means you will likely aim it too high and it's not much better than a circular beam. Lumintop doesn't mention the lux value it reaches. They state it puts out about 800 lumen on turbo but you can only see about 35 -40 metres far with it as not enough light reaches the road at a far distance, no matter how you aim it, so this lamp is nowhere near as good as the Saferide 80 with 270 lumens...
Lights for different power sources: dynamo, battery, bike's battery
For a standard bicycle the choice in bike lighting is dynamo or battery powered lighting. I prefer dynamo lighting which is essentially an always full battery. With battery powered lighting I need to think about charging and I get into situations too often of a light cutting out on me.
For a pedelec or e-bike you could use battery powered lights but you may want to use e-bike lights which vary from standard power (similar to 2.4W dynamo headlamps) to high powered (10W or more), and from low priced to very expensive such as the Lupine SL (400 euros or more). What you can use on your pedelec depends on the system, old Bosch systems for example only support standard 2.4W+0.6W lighting. I dived into this related to a question from a manufacturer and figuring out which system supports what was quite a bit of work...
Be aware of the problems in reviews and in estimating the qualities of a light from beam shots and/or videos
1. Headlamps
You may assume that a beam shot or video tells you all you need to know, but that is not the case. Beam shots and videos do NOT show what you see yourself when riding with a lamp. This comes from 1) psychological factors, 2) physiological factors (the human vision system adapting to the amount of light for example), and 3) limitations in cameras and computer screens that you need to be aware of to judge lamps (and to judge reviewers, on whether or not they know how to analyse by whether or not they take these issues into consideration and tell you about it).
When I started analysing bicycle lighting I found various odd differences that I came across related to how some beam shapes could annoy me and how the beam shots did not show what I saw in reality. As I said at the very start of my website (2008), beam shots are not enough, and my experiences really showed this: a description of a (competent) reviewer is essential to make you understand what you can actually expect from a light:
1. The issues with beam shots from cameras, monitors:
- Perspective: I figured out the reason of one of the biggest problems in beam shots not showing what you experience in reality, and that is what I call 'perspective over-accentuation of the near field': What is close to the camera takes up the largest space on the beam shot compared to the rest of the road further on, and thus if a light lights up brightly close to the bike, it will seem very bright (as an impression from that beam shot) because a large area on screen is brightly lit up contrary to a light that only lights up the same amount of surface area on the road further on, but that is not how you experience it in reality...
- Spill light: Cameras and computer monitors have a limited dynamic range. You will see in reality a lit up area to the sides of the beam that the camera shows, where the beam shot shows 'black' unless the beam has an actually sharp cutoff to the sides (which is something that a reviewer should mention with beam shots, whether the sideways cutoff of a lamp is sharp or not)...
This is not possible to deduce from beam shots so you need a reviewer to tell you about a sharp cutoff to the sides.
2. The issues of a lamp when riding with it that stem from the human vision system and psychological factors, and which you can deduce from beam shots, allows you to identify problem areas in lights from examining their beam shots:
- Sharp edges/corners attract attention: Sharp edges but especially sharp corners in the beam attract your attention which is bad (attention grabbed in one area is attention lost from another area).
- Sharp edges to the sides can give a feeling of being trapped in a tunnel of light, steering means the tunnel moves along so you can't escape it. It is weird, you probably need to have experienced it to understand this feeling.
- Artefacts/unevenness within the beam make it so that you can't judge whether the unevenness you see is from the road or from the light. On bad roads you need an even beam to be able to judge where to ride, to evade bad sections! [ this is why I don't recommend any B&M lights after the original Edelux, they are generally overexposed close to you (e.g. the Luxos is pretty bad in this respect, which you notice esp. with rain) and/or have a lot of artefacts in the main beam. ]
- The human vision system adjusts to the brightness, locally and globally. This means hot spots do not just attract attention, they negatively influence what you can see as the hotspot and the area around that hotspot is then made dimmer by the human vision system and the bigger this hotspot is, the larger the area that it affects. With a taillamp for example I saw a circle of blackness around a taillamp, from the too bright light (high intensity, cd/m^2) of that tailllamp shining towards me. So the brightness was reduced so much in a circle around that very bright spot of the taillamp that it all became black. With a headlamp this can also happen but only with lights that are incorrectly aimed or non-cutof lights. With a Magichine light with round beam which is quite tight it was worse than with that taillamp: I rode towards it and at a certain distance I could not see anything at all any more.
I will describe some of these points in a bit more detail with some examples below, but there is more, see the analysis section for far more details.
2. Tailamps
Pictures/video: There are 2 useful types of pictures/video, looking at the projection onto a wall or corner to show where the light goes (beam shot), and looking at the taillamp as if following it so see what you would experience riding behind it (trailing shot).
Overflow of the camera sensor in beam shots/trailing shots: For taillamps a particular issue is the overflow of camera sensors that show yellow where the light is in fact red but at a high intensity. Further from beam shots or a video you cannot properly see that a taillamp has a too high intensity in cd/m2 (i.e. an almost 'point source' of light), which is what can cause partial blinding (in which case you will see a black circle around the taillamp and in that area you don't see anything).
Flashing is recommended in various places, I disagree, it attracts attention in a way that makes the road as a whole less safe except possibly on roads with very few vehicles outside cities. It makes distance estimation and speed estimation impossible, it gives others the feeling of a bicycle being stationary instead of moving. It makes it impossible to see whether a bicycle is going left or right from subtle movement indications that show this clearly with a steady taillamp.
More detail on judging headlamps
On my site I discuss and review mainly cutoff lights, as these are not just required in Germany, but a cutoff beam for a headlamp is in case of strong headlights implicitly required in many countries even if not stated in the rules by virtue of having a general rule "do not blind other traffic", further I focus on them because they are better than circular beams in most circumstances for the following reasons:
- They are far more effective in lighting up the road, a factor of 3x-5x from my tests, which is caused by a combination of various factors, in particular:
- They are generally not overexposing the near field (areas close to you), contrary to circular beams which almost always overexpose close to you. An overexposure close to you means your eyes will adjust to that which makes the rest of the road seem more dimly lit up...
[ An experiment that I did long ago and pointed out in one of my videos goes as follows: I put a bit of red tape on the rim of a black smartphone. I watched the red tape, then switched the phone's screen on while keeping my eyes locked onto the red tape, and what I saw was that the red tape became dimmer... ]
- A distribution of light in which most gets onto the road instead of almost half going upwards
- They don't annoy (sometimes it can even become: blinding) oncoming traffic from shining too much light into the eyes of other road users. Annoying people means taking away their attention from everything else which means making the road less safe. Note that the nature of cutoff lights, with a very high light density at the top of the beam, means that aiming them correctly is very important. When aimed too high they blind oncoming traffic more than most round beams.
What to look for in headlamps, on beam shots, in videos and riding with it in reality:
- Beam pattern: There are some issues with certain beam shapes, patterns in the beam and light distributions, and there is a big difference between riding with a lamp in reality, and watching beam shots or even ride videos:
- Psychological effect of being trapped in a tunnel of light: Beam shapes such as a long straight area with sudden drop to near dark to the sides can give the feeling of being trapped in a tunnel of light. This is a weird sensation that I had read about, and later experienced myself when using the Cyo R.
You cannot experience this effect from a beam shot, and probably also not from a ride video. You also cannot deduce from a beam shot that this may happen, as from beam shots you cannot be sure how hard the sideways cutoff is and that is what causes this effect.
- Psychological effect of attention grabbing corners: The Cyo R that I mentioned also has very sharp corners which attract your attention, which is another bad point. I was looking at where the corners are too much, it is hard to avoid this.
You will be able to see the problem from beam shots once you know what to look for, but you cannot experience this effect from a beam shot, and possibly also not from a ride video (when watching under normal conditions, such as with a relatively small computer screen).
- Psychological effect of attention grabbing artefacts and hot spots, which also prevent you from properly reading the road surface: Artefacts (patterns in the light beam) and hot spots (fairly large areas that are a lot brighter than the rest of the beam) that are in the main beam (i.e. what you see on the road ahead of you) are often bad as these distract in 2 ways:
1. They grab attention (distractions that cost you brain power),
and
2. They prevent you from reading the surface properly, to see where there are bad sections of the road and thus to be able to see where to ride to evade holes.
3. Artefacts that are stripes of light on an otherwise dark section close to you on the ground near the front wheel or even a bit behind it can give an impression of another cyclist coming up behind you and wanting to overtake you, see the Roxim D6.
Note that artefacts outside the main beam to the sides close to you (not in the direct view of where you are looking) are not very distracting as I experienced with the Philips Saferide 80 and 60 (and thus also the Spanninga Axendo 60 and Axendo 80 which are based on the reflectors of the Saferide 60), so you can sort of ignore those.
You will be able to see the problem from beam shots once you know what to look for, but you cannot experience this effect from a beam shot, and possibly also not from a ride video (when watching under normal conditions, such as with a relatively small computer screen, you may be able to experience it with an extremely large screen in a completely dark room).
- Physiological effect of making areas seem dimmer: Light distribution: There should be no hot spots and no overexposure of the near field. The human vision system adapts to the light both locally [ I saw for example a black circle around a taillamp that has a too high luminosity (cd/m2) where I could see nothing and around that I could see normally ] and globally: The brighter a large area is the more the vision system makes everything darker. So if too much light is shining on the road, esp. when close to the rider, then his vision system will make everything dimmer including the sections farther away with less light. This means you can see worse far ahead with the light than if there was no overexpsure close to you.
More is not always better, the light distribution is important and a lamp that puts out less light but has a better light distribution can thus be better, even a lot better than a lamp that puts out far more light but most of it close to you.
Perspective matters here: Note that in this case distance is an issue, whereas generally perspective does not influence how you experience the brightness of a light, the closer the light lights up the road too bright in a section, the more area is lit up on the retina of the eye, which means that the vision system adjusts everything to become dimmer.
You will be able to see the problem from beam shots once you know what to look for, but you cannot experience this effect from a beam shot, and possibly also not from a ride video (when watching under normal conditions, such as with a relatively small computer screen, the only way to perhaps see this is with an extremely large screen in a completely dark room but likely only for the global change from a hotspot and still that is likely not as in reality due to the absence of depth).
- Beam shots and videos are not what you see in reality because these show a whole overview of the situation whereas what you do while riding is looking at spots where your attention is aimed and you 'see' a little around that: Beam shots/videos show a whole picture, with perspective, whereas you see in reality differently:
1) you look at a certain spot on the road. While riding you do 'see' the rest in a vague sense and in that it may affect your vision system. What you are not looking at doesn't affect your impression of the beam, except in case of say overexposure/hotspots that affect your vision system.
2) Perspective means that a lamp that puts out a lot of light close to the bike looks 'brighter' than a lamp that puts out more light far away, in the sense that a larger area on screen is lit up brightly, but in reality you get a different impression because you look at a certain spot on the road (and you don't look at how big that area is, you only look there and you will notice whether or not you can see what you want/need to see), there is no 'overview image' that you see while riding, contrary to the 'total image' that you see when viewing a beam shot on a computer screen...
Another issue as I described earlier is that the vision system will adjust brightness of everything you experience in an area around the brightest light. If that area is big, a lot of what you see will be affected around that area, if small then a smaller area. This means overexposure close to you is very bad, it makes everything else less bright.
It is very difficult to deduce from a beam shot whether a lamp in reality looks dark or bright, or darker/brighter than another lamp. In comparison beam shots that I made the Edelux II looked brighter than the Saferide 60 (I lost these comparison beam shots in a HD crash, I may remake them in 2024) but in reality I experience it as dimmer. I mentioned elsewhere on my site a tool for this, namely covering up the screen with say cardboard, then sliding that down so you look at the light far away first.
- Limited dynamic range of cameras and computer screens: Beam shots and videos do not show spill light to the sides because of the limited dynamic range of cameras and of computer screens... This means you can usually see more than what the beam shots indicate. Thus a reviewer needs to mention whether there is spill light, also to know whether the cutoff to the sides is smooth or sharp. A sharp cutoff to the sides can give a feeling of being trapped in a tunnel of light.
Note that you cannot properly deduce whether there is a hard cutoff to the sides from beam shots and ride videos because of the limited dynamic range of cameras and computer screens, which is why a reviewer needs to state whether there is such a hard cutoff.
- Effect of rain on how well you can see: A beam with overexposure in the near field (so everything at very close range to you is lit up too brightly compared to the rest), will give issues in the rain due to the angles: the near field light will still mostly come to you, whereas a lot of the light farther away will bounce away like on a mirror and this is caused by the water on the road surface. This means light close to the bike should be less bright than in the main section of ca. 15-25 m away.
This can be estimated somewhat from beam shots. The Luxos B/U are examples where this is a problem.
- There are other effects such as a beam can give the impression of a non-symmetric beam with certain beam shapes when riding past walls or hedges (e.g. the IQ-X).
It is hard to estimate this from beam shots. A reviewer needs to tell this in his review.
- Flickering of a lamp: Any flickering may not be obvious in reality but it can stand out in videos due to the video recording rate.
- When the flicker rate is similar but not exactly the same as the video frame rate, which is normally what happens, then you will see some sort of flickering. This stood out with the Supernova M99 dynamo lamp... (I thought it could have been because of either backscattering in fog affecting the camera's ambient brightness sensor, or an issue with the light being pulsed at a frequency similar to the camera's recording rate and it turned out to be the latter).
If a reviewer doesn't indicate that he sees flickering, it is likely caused by the camera. However, once you realise that there is flickering you may see it, or rather 'notice' it even though you didn't see it before.
- Light colour of the LED: Neutral white is far better than cool white, but few headlamps use such LEDs (e.g. for dynamo the Roxim D6, but it was always very hard to find, then when I last checked it was no longer listed on Roxim's site). This is caused by people not being able to look beyond "It's bright" that manufacturers then cater to...
It is difficult to estimate what the colour reproduction from the beam is like from viewing beam shots and ride videos, because of white balance issues with cameras and it depends on the objects encountered and the colour of the road, type of asphalt etc. that you see in the beam shot or video.
- The total light output and lux rating are only guides as to how good the beam may be: A low lux rating means that you can't see far with it as that needs a lot of light at the top of the beam as that section gets spread out over a large area. So I would suggest up to 40 lux is fine for cycling with lower speed cycling on roads lying beside roads for motorised vehicles (which blind you because of the asymmetric cut off in beam shapes for these vehicles, i.e. the light is not cut off at all on one side, which from the view of the vehicle is the right side in countries where you drive on the right hand side of the road). I would suggest looking for lights with a lux rating of 60 or more when riding a lot on roads outside of cities with no street lighting or where you ride a lot on bicycle paths besides roads for vehicles where you get this issue of seeing the asymmetric light from those vehicles.
- For headlamps there is no need at all for flashing under any circumstance: You just need to be seen (a to-be-seen light suffices in most cities, if that is allowed in your country) and outside cities or in cities with poor street lighting you will need a to-see light (which always is a to-be-seen light too due to the light going above the horizon) that properly illuminates the road. Further you will see oncoming traffic and can avoid it usually if something weird happens, and as you are already on the other side of the road, that you need to be seen beyond that which a steady light shows that oncoming traffic, is unlikely.
You may think that blinking is good to attract attention, however that only works in small numbers (which means it wouldn't work in NL nor Germany if it was allowed to use such lights there). I've given some arguments in my reviews and in the analysis section as to why this is bad, even in small numbers of cyclists using such lights. One is that grabbing attention means taking that attention away from all the rest that happens on the road thus making it less safe.
- Price is a criterium as good headlamps vary a lot in price, usually more expensive headlamps have a higher light output and higher lux rating.
Suggestions: Spanninga Axendo 40, Axendo 60, and for e-bike the Axendo 80, for battery all these options area available too. Have a look at the summary: The best dynamo headlamps.
More detail on judging taillamps
The choice you have in good taillamps is fairly large these days. There are plenty of taillamps with a good light distribution, but poor taillamps with near point sources of light still abound and these are problematic in both other road users not being able to estimate distance/speed, but also in actually causing a certain amount of blindness coming from the effect of high brightness in a small spot in the eye, and everything around that area becoming dimmer due to automatic adjustment of the visual system. I mentioned that this can happen already in my review of a fairly strong headlight of ca. 550 lm, the Magicshine, in 2010, which caused total blindness at a certain distance, and with taillamps this is also possible. Usually it is a smaller circle of 'blackness' around that taillamp as I described in my rebuttal of the inane post by a moderator on candle power forums who didn't know anything about this topic.
Flashing is generally not good as I mentioned, there may be reasons to use them on e.g. long roads where cyclists are not expected (Australia, perhaps USA too), but I'd use them then only in fairly desolate areas, and only along with another steady taillamp. Even then I would only use a flashing yellow light, not red, as that is generally used as a warning signal. Note that the general argument that attracting attention is good is not convincing at best: It takes away attention from everything else which does not make the road as a whole safer, on the contrary, but also there are plenty of reasons why they don't help: The people who are likely to run into you are likely to run into you no matter what lighting you use. There are plenty of stories of people running into police cars and ambulances with their emergency lights on (and sirens) who then claimed that they didn't see (nor hear) these vehicles...
Even worse, flashing will actually attract people who are not paying attention into exactly following you (because of following the same path as others, the light becomes like a beacon), rather than passing you to the side, which means there is a higher change they run into you.
Interpreting beam shots, head-on/trailing shots: It is difficult to see how well a taillamp works from beam shots (projections onto a wall) and head-on-shots. With head-on shots, which is where you see the taillamp as you would experience it with someone else using that on his bicycle, i.e. with the light coming directly towards you, not reflected off of another surface, you still don't really see what you see in reality.
What to look for in taillamps:
- A taillamp should have a large illuminated area: This means that some distance estimation is possible with a single taillamp. The first one to really do this was the Philips Lumiring in 2011. The B&M line plus somewhat did this before then, but far less well.
- A taillamp should be big enough to create a large illuminated area: The previous point includes this point but I list it separately as this is easy to spot and you may see the size mentioned/listed for some small taillamps as being 'small and looks cute' but in reality a small size is only 1 thing: Bad. That it looks nice and small is totally irrelevant to the function of a taillamp which obviously is far more important than a taillamp not standing out. Why would it be cool for a taillamp be small? Why would you not want to see the taillamp as being the size that is optimal? To me that makes no sense, you might as well want a very small frame because it looks cute, whereas the frame should be a certain size to be useful (such as enough space to mount 2 bottle cages), to be strong. The physical size of a taillamp should what is needed to make the illuminated area as large as possible. There is no point in making very small taillamps such as the B&M Line plus, the Schmidt/SON version of that and the Supernova taillamps, all of which are not cute but bad. A rear rack mounted taillamp should therefore be at least 80mm but more like 100 mm wide.
- Mounting width for rear rack mounted taillamps:: Is the taillamp available in 80mm or 50mm mounting width? This may matter depending on the rear rack if you mount it there. Spanninga make their taillamps with fixed-width mounting available only in 80mm since a few years (except for OEM sales for bike makers who may order a large number)...
- A good taillamp should not be flashing: From my own experiences of seeing (experiencing) a cyclist with a flashing taillamp as 'non-moving' I realised when analysing a report on an accident in which a cyclist was cut off and run down by a motorist going to the right, despite having many taillamps, that there is a problem with speed perception of such a motorist after overtaking a cyclist with a flashing taillamp (or multiple flashing taillamps), as the motorist has no sense of speed at all of any vehicle that uses a flashing light after overtaking it, and that means that in his perception, once he has passed such a cyclist, he has passed an object that has no speed and thus the cyclist is 'gone' in his perception (and that means that he thinks it is safe/ok to turn right even with the cyclist just behind him). This is a psychological effect that needs to be taken into account. There are more factors, see the analysis section.
- A good taillamp should not have a too high intensity (cd/m^2)), i.e. almost point sources of light: It is hard to spot point sources of light within a beam shot or trailing shot, apart from being in a place of overexposure, i.e. where cameras show yellow instead of red. A reviewer should note any such places where the light is too bright.
There are many good and cheap taillamps so price is not an issue.
Suggestions: Nean brake taillamp (on Amazon) is the current price/performance winner, then the Büchel Wing, Spanninga Elips, Spanninga Solo, Spanninga Lineo, Axa Blueline and more. Have a look at the summary here: The best (dynamo) taillamps. There are e-bike and battery powered versions of these taillamps too.
Dynamos
Most dynamos these days are gearless hub dynamos. The disadvantages of these are flickering light at low speeds (below 7 km/h), and vibrations in the handlebar (depending esp. on the front fork and riding speed). The advantage is no noise. The Renak Enparlite 2 is the only geared dynamo hub and that gives no vibrations but has a fairly loud noise (I've discussed options and mr. Wangermann has looked into changing the dynamo, perhaps it will lead to improvements). This is similar in loudness to the noise of sidewall dynamos.
What to look for in dynamos:
- Type: gearless dynamo hub, geared dynamo hub, rim dynamo, perhaps a dynamo with USB output otherwise you can use a converter with a standard dynamo/dynamo hub but that normally means a switch to select between output to USB or lights. I would normally not recommend a sidewall dynamo running on a tyre. The lighting you can use with dynamos having only a USB output is then of course only battery powered with USB input for charging.
- Neither weight nor efficiency are much of an issue in what speed loss you get, I would not let these factors influence a decision.
Suggestions: SP PV-8/PD-8, Shimano DH-S 501/DH-3N80, Renak Enparlite, Velogical rim dynamo. Have a look at my summary: The best 3W (StVZO) (hub) dynamos.
Much more information and depth on these topics: Analysis and reviews
For much more details see the bicycle lighting analysis section and the bicycle lighting reviews section
Last modified: 2024-2-16
