On Monday my new supar-cool Laseredge bike lights arrived through the post. Personally I would have called them something better, like xtreeem plus 9800 lights or wolf edge powerpc 360, but they are called Laseredge which is still kinda 1337 im sure you will agree. I purchased them from some shonky Ebay seller who had imported them from America, for about £100 all in. They have a Ni-Mh battery, with a 5W lamp and a 15W lamp (in laymans terms you can see more with the 15W one as its more powerful). The set also came with a helmet mount, which was a problem as I had originally asked for a handlebar mount.
Now in the past I have always considered helmet lights to be accessories of the rich (same people who have the fancy bikes + no skills), as they used to only be available on top end systems due to the requirement of being lightweight and low profile. By Wednesday evening I had gotten impatient and really wanted to give them a whirl, so I strapped the lights onto my helmet (no instructions here so i improvised) and took Sherry for a walk in the dark. The lights were really bright, and I mean really bright. With the 5W on I could do everything par very technical stuff where you need more depth perception.
Sherry Walk:
20 Mins @ 5W
10 Mins @ 20W
After arriving home with dogga + smiles all round, I grab some dinner and decide to get gear together for a longer ride up the Pentlands. I leave about 10pm and head up the Castlelaw track towards Fala Knowe. At this point i’m really paranoid about the lights failing on me as I have already used them for 30 mins, including full power. The route I was planning on doing takes me 45-50 minutes going all-out in good weather, which is about as long as my old lights lasted. And I hadn’t charged these new lights at all since getting them, and the weather was poor so I was taking a risk.
After I had caned it to the top of the hill I took a left along the side of Capelaw hill, and saw some ‘eyes’ in the distance. It turns out the eyes belonged to sheep but I was bricking it when I first saw them. The path was very muddy and progress was very hard. To go at walking pace required concentration and real effort because of the strong headwind and slippy conditions.
Downhill through Phantoms Cleugh, I have a tumble due to an unseen, grassed over rut. Unscathed I pick myself up and continue on. It wasn’t much fun due to the weather and waterlogged trail, but there was the novelty factor of riding at night! I was (unintentionally) skidding round corners in the mud too which was kinda cool.
I arrived home covered in mud. I guess I was probably out for about an hour and 15 mins.
Night Ride:
40 Mins @ 5W
35 Mins @ 20W
I then left the lights on for a while last night and again this morning, roughly 25 minutes at full power and then another 45 minutes at 5W. I wanted to put a full power cycle on the battery to break it in properly. They haven’t dimmed yet!
Attempt to discharge:
45 Mins @ 5W
25 Mins @ 20W
This leaves a grand total of:
20+40+45Mins = 105Mins @ 5W
10+35+25Mins = 70Mins @ 20W
…with no sign of dimming. More than adequate for any night rides ill be wanting to do, thats for sure.
Smart looking lights dude, would you recommend helmet mounts over handlebars ?
!
Comment by Euan — October 27, 2005 @ 10:57 pm
Yeah I would actually, all you have to do is fix the light to your helmet, everything else goes in your rucksack so you don’t have to faff with fixing the battery to your bike.
These lights I got off ebay are pretty good for the money.
Most of the riders I know have cateyes or lumicycles, the cateyes im not sure if they can be put on your helmet and in my experience are a bit of a faff. Lumicycles are reputedly pretty good but they are more expensive and I am pretty sure they are not much better than these, charger is identical, the battery looks pretty similar .. its only the lamps that are different. You are paying an extra £50 for the brand in my opinion.
I will probably use these lights, realistically, less than 10 times this winter, so thats 10 quid a ride! If they last a few winters (should hopefully) they start becoming economically viable!
Comment by Sandy Thomson — October 28, 2005 @ 8:21 am
I see I have been spotted too …
Comment by Sandy Thomson — October 28, 2005 @ 8:24 am
Indeed, I was faffing about with my phone on the bus home and there you were so I pressed the button
its on full zoom which is why the quality is uber-bad.
It was Cateye ABS 20’s I was looking at. I’ll need to keep looking around !
Take it easy.
Comment by Euan — October 28, 2005 @ 10:39 am
The cateye lights are still pretty decent, my old lights were RC230’s I think.
Comment by Sandy Thomson — October 28, 2005 @ 11:18 am
Might get a set of them actually, they look like a much better solution, like the eyeball tracking laser guided bombs, naturalistic.
Comment by Adam — November 2, 2005 @ 9:17 pm
They are really good for the money, about as much as I can really justify spending on bike lights.
Comment by Sandy Thomson — November 2, 2005 @ 11:49 pm
Hey, I have the same helmet mount light but I lost the battery to it. I was wondering if it’s not to much trouble if you could send me the specs on the battery so that I can buy a replacement? I only have the one lamp with my laseredge system.
Comment by alex — October 19, 2008 @ 10:12 pm