jryoung74

I witnessed a rider from behind who had a flashing light that I could see about 3/4 to 1 mile away during the daylight. Does anyone have any suggestions on the best / brightest LED daytime flashers? Some features I am looking for are the slim style and dimmable for group rides. I saw one called the Solas 100. Any feedback on that one?

angerdan

Flashing rear light are only usable during daylight, because they'll blind following traffic and distract the attention to much.
More important is the beam angle.
Take a look at:
Orfos FlarePro - orfos.us
Niteflux Red Zone 8 - niteflux.com/buy/red-zone-8/

MBurke

DINOTTE LIGHTING ULTIMATE TRAIL AND ROAD LIGHTS

https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycl...-quad-red.html


I have a Quad Red and it works very good for me.

I like the comparison on page 4

https://forums.thepaceline.net/showt...=157107&page=4

Tourist in MSN

A friend of mine got a really bright flasher last spring. A day later he was complaining how fast the battery ran down.

wingless

Here is my Cygolite Hotshot Pro 150 topic.

My experience w/ this is positive and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this light.

rm -rf

Yes, the Cygolite Pro 150 works great.

Daytime
I use the single flash mode in daytime, at 1-per-second flash, or sometimes 2-per second. As wingless tested, this short, bright flash has a long run time -- he got 34 hours at 1-per-second. I want drivers to see me way down the road, so they can put down their phones, and get ready to safely pass me. The flash is eye catching even with sunglasses on a sunny day, and very effective at sunrise or sunset, or in mixed shadows and sun.
This bright flash doesn't annoy group riders following me during the day.

Sunrise/sunset
I like the 2-per-second flash when the sun is low. With low sun glare, the bright flash might let the drivers see me a little sooner.

Night
At night, riding solo, I use the "waa-waa" mode (what's the real name for this setting?) It smoothly ramps up to full brightness and ramps back down, instead of a quick flash. (Just the short flashes are 150 lumens, the steady light and long flashes "only" reach 90 lumens.)

At night, in groups, the steady beam can be adjusted anywhere between bright and dim modes. I run the dimmest setting, which is still quite bright -- you can't look directly into the beam. But viewed from off center, it won't annoy any following riders. Unfortunately, all the flash modes are full brightness -- their adjustments are for flash timing only. In a group, blinking isn't needed, with all the other taillights in the group.

This light has a wider beam than the previous Cygolite tail lights. Even the narrow beam of the older Cygolite 2W would cover two lanes at about 50-60 feet back, and more width as the distance increased. And closer than that, the spill light was effective at all angles from 90 degrees to the sides to all the way back. This 150 light's main beam is almost three times as wide, and the spill light is brighter.

I aim it slightly below level. Then the beam still covers from above eye level, down to the road surface. I get a bright pool of red light on the road about 20-40 feet behind me. I think that helps in city riding, with mixed bright and dim areas.

There's a lot of other flash modes, I don't see a need for them.

rm -rf

Cygolite 150 vs Cygolite Hotshot 2W

2W on the left, 150 on the right.

Some years ago, the 2W was one of the best lower cost bright tail lights, a lot brighter than most lights at that time. Now, it's adequate, but LEDs are a lot more efficient, allowing brighter lights without overheating or using up a battery too fast.

First, the beam spread, shot indoors during the day, with a very dark exposure of 4 stops, -4 EV. Both lights aimed slightly downward the same amount, on a sheet of white paper.
The extra brightness of the 150 shows as yellow in photos instead of red.

Even the very narrow beam of the 2W on the left is effective out on the road, it widens with distance, of course. The narrow beam allows it to send more of it's light way down the road, but still wide enough at a moderate distance to cover all lanes.
The 150 is a lot wider, for coverage on curved roads and nearby drivers in another lane.

Both lights have spill light through the casing that works at close distances even from the side.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Next, both lights aimed at a tan ceiling from about 6 feet away. This exposure is about 3 stops darker, -3 EV.
My photo software says the center beam is R:150 on the 2W, and significantly brighter at R:190 on the 150 light. (Using the RGB scale from 0 to 255). The difference is about .65 of an EV, where an EV = 1.0 is double the amount of light.

The 150 light's beam is wider than it is tall, so less light is wasted above or below eye level. So the light should be mounted vertically instead of on it's side.

I aim the 150 light slightly downward. That way, part of the main beam is still above eye level, and the bottom of this wide beam lights up the road behind me.

The older 2W is less effective if it's beam isn't aimed correctly, straight back. Both these lights are much less effective clipped to a seat bag, since it can't be aimed very well. Much better to mount them on the bike frame.

Skipjacks

I run a Cygolite Hotshot 150 as my primary "SEE ME" light in the daytime. It's more than bright enough to be seen in direct sunlight. Driver WILL NOT miss you. I keep that on a 1 blink per 1.5 seconds flash and it's plenty. (And that that blink rate the battery last just short of forever) The limitation is that the beam can only be seen straight back. It's not alerting anyone to the sides that I'm there. But the driver's directly behind me at teh target audience.

Slightly higher than that I have a Cygolight Hotrod 50. It's still bright enough to see seen in daylight, but not from as far back. I keep that on a faster blink setting. 1 per every half second or so. It's must more eye catching, but not as bright. This light has a much wider viewing angle. So it offers me decent lateral notification as well. (Note, it does not mount horizontally like in the image below natively. I had to get creative)

Basically the 150 grabs a driver's attention from a long way back and the 50 keeps their attention as they are close with the faster blink rate.

For night riding the 150 is uneeded. The Hotrod 50 is more than enough to announce my presence on the road.The 150 is more than overkill in the dark. It's downright blinding.

Get a front light too. Go brighter. I run a Cygolite (I like Cygolite...can you tell?) Dash 460 in the front to make driver's coming the opposite direction see me. Some people go even brighter in the front.

01 CAt Man Do

The write-up that "rm -rf" did on the Hotshot 150 was very well done. I've been using the same rear light for the last year or so and I've been very pleased with how it works. Not to mention that for what you are getting it is very affordable. If your goal is to be seen from behind at a distance the 150 gets it done. I don't use mine during the day but I suppose if I did I would switch it from the " fade in / out " mode I usually use to one of the sharper, "Flash/pulse" modes.

Like Mr. RM said the Hotshot is only going to work for group rides on the steady mode which you can adjust down to a bare minimum output. Otherwise for group rides I suggest buying a cheaper / lower output rear blinkie, one that also offers a lower output flash mode if you think you might want that. Sometimes you can buy these for less than $15. Last year I bought one of these cheap Blitzu Gator set-ups just to screw around with. Turns out it came with a nice little rear light that has 3 intensity modes for flash and three for steady. Low flash or low steady with this little Blitzu light would serve you very well on group rides. Too bad they don't seem to sell these little rear lights separately. If they did they would likely sell for around $10.

angerdan

Doesn't help when traffic is coming from the side out of an street.
Beam angle is far to narrow. Only blinding is high, but that's no advantage.

TrojanHorse

I have a cygolite and it's good for what it is (inexpensive, pretty bright but narrow beam and long battery) but I really, really, really prefer the Dinotte quadred for daytime or dusk/dawn use.

And if you're riding at night, use more than one light. And reflective gear.

01 CAt Man Do

The primary function of a rear light is to get you seen from the rear. I'm not saying that having a rear light that has more side conspicuousness isn't going to be helpful but in my opinion I want vehicles approaching from the rear to see me "sooner" rather than later. If you want to be seen from the sides better there are many other ways to do that that don't require a specific rear lamp.

My approach to being more conspicuous from the sides is to first, use more lights in the front ( including a small helmet light ). Along with my main bar lamp I also use a small flasher down on my front fork. Of course if you use wheel lights and / or a helmet light on flash, any one of those will get you well noticed as well.

Actually though the Hotshot 150 is fairly conspicuous from the sides. I could provide photos that show this but unfortunately any photo ( or video ) of an LED lamp will almost always make it look brighter than it actually is. That said here is a photo taken above the seat of my bike. Forget how bright it looks. It's not actually that bright. More importantly, notice the beam pattern how it stretches beyond the seat. Just believe me, you can see the light at night when standing in front of the bike ( ten ft. from the front and then 10ft to the side. No it doesn't look like a ball of flame ( like from the rear ) but you can see it.

jryoung74

ThNk you all for the greatginformation. Based on your comments, I did some more research on the cygolite 150. It got mostly good reviews, but some say the mounting brackets are junk, some say they don't last long, and some say they are kinda cheap made. Then I read reviews that say the opposite. Do any of you have feedback on any of those claims? Is there anything else I should be aware of with this light? Thank you.

wingless

Glad to help.

The brackets are fine.

rm -rf

Yeah, the mounts are sturdy.

At night
I took a few night photos next to a brightly lit parking lot.

Really dark streets are fine with any old blinky, it's the mixed dark and lighted areas or riding before or after sunset that need better tail lights.

I underexposed to match what it looked like to my eye. Cygolite Pro 150 on steady, which is about 90 lumens. It's short, sharp flashes are 150 lumens.

I think I'll aim the tail light slightly more downward. It still shows plenty of vertical coverage in the fence photos.

It's a Dinotte headlight on "dim" at 500 lumens, 1/4 power. In the city, I use either the 1000 lumen setting or the 2000 lumen (!) if there's traffic. Aimed down a bit to save the driver eyes, and make a big pool of light on the street. On dark country roads, it's mostly 500 lumens, 1000 if I'm near 18-20 mph, 2000 on downhills. The brighter settings have extremely bright glare from reflective signs, quite annoying.

Photos
1. Shot from a little off center, but still in the cone of max brightness. The center of the beam is overexposed in the photo, it's way too bright for the exposure.

You can see how a bright headlight helps with identifying this as a bike.
And I usually have a pair of reflective leg bands, which are quite bright with car reflected light.

( ISO 1600, F2.7, 1/15 second exposure)


2. Farther off center. Still very bright. I think this light has a beam that's more than wide enough. Tail lights are more for seeing the rider at longer distances. Up close, like this, reflective clothing, tail lights, and head lights all work together.


3. Still bright. And the headlight pool of light on the road is bright.


~~~~
In the next two photos, I'd be already past a car approaching on a side street. Headlights do most of the work for side street cars, the tail light is for overtaking drivers.
4. Lots of spill light from the tail light.


5. It even shows past 90 degrees to the side.

01 CAt Man Do

Nice photos RM. The rear shots are spot on. As for the side photos I think you could of had a more dramatic picture using a darker background environment but regardless it's almost impossible to show a photo of what the human eye sees at night by using a camera. You did a stand up job though.

Now to the people who still think a Hotshot 150 is too bright for urban use, I think you need to reconsider. If you drive in a car you pass super bright lights all the time. Sometimes it's the headlights from on-coming cars, sometimes it's from the police with their 10000 lumen light bars going on the side of the road and then there is always the people who work on the roads at night using industrial work lights ( some of those are Damn bright. ) That said the output from a Hotshot 150 is only going to annoying if you have no choice but to look at it because you are directly behind someone using one and can't pass... ( such as on a group ride ). Otherwise in a car it's not a major issue. If you can deal with Police lights ( which happens all the time ) these pail in comparison.

@JRYoung....The HS 150 uses a typical plastic mount. I've had no problems with it. It utilizes a quick release that operates without issue. The mount also pivots so it can be aimed. When you slide the lamp onto the mount it will give an audible "click" that lets you know the lamp is firmly engaged with the mount. It does require a screw driver though to adjust the aim.

jwh20

I have a couple of these, they are extremely bright and I'm told they can be seen from a very long distance:

https://www.planetbike.com/store/sup...ail-light.html

I think they can be had for under US$30.

01 CAt Man Do

Those came out years ago. Pretty much "old school" tech now. I bought a couple of those when they first came out. I can't even remember now how many years ago that was. Back in the day they were cutting edge. I'd use one if I had nothing else or had no access to a USB recharger but the old school Superflash is no where near as bright as the newer stuff they sell now.

Skipjacks

Brackets are solid. It's a good sturdy plastic.

As for buying the Cygolite, check out eBay. There are some really good deals on there there for new lights. Not just used. I saved like 20% on eBay on all 3 of my Cygolites. All 3 are good.

rm -rf

Yeah, tail light photos are difficult. The center of the beam is way overexposed in the camera, so it's hard to see how bright it appears to a person. The background in my photos was approximately as bright as it was in person.

Maybe I'll get out my old Cygolite 2W and the new 150 and shoot them from a long distance away, as a comparison. That sounds more useful.

JohnJ80

I have a Cygolite 150 and a Bontrager Flare R. The Cygolite is 150 lumens and the Flare is 65 lumens. Of the two, I prefer the Flare and think it is a more visible light. Bontrager put a very nice lens in front of the LEDs and it shows up as a high bright larger dot than does the Cygolite that shows distinctly the 4 LEDs. I can tell very little difference in brightness between the two when looking at them behind but my eye is more drawn to the Flare. I think this illustrates the benefit of lenses vs pure output power.

I also have a See.Sense rear taillight that is supposed to put out 200 lumens. I'd put it third behind both the Cygolite and the Flare. There is virtually no lens over the LEDs and they look like tiny supe rbright pin points of light but less noticeable than either of the other two. In the taillight world, the lumens war is winding down and it's going to be a battle of the optics.

I have not had good luck with the Cygolite brackets. They are kind of fiddly and I've had them break before. I think the Bontrager bracket is inherently better and more robust.

I also do not like the two button interface on the Cygolilte. I wind up dimming it or changing the mode instead of turning it on or off. So it's more fiddly and I don't like that. The Flare has a simple one button interface and it's a lot easier to use.

01 CAt Man Do

John, as far as I know the Cygolite Hotshot 150 only has the one LED so I don't know why you say it has four. I agree though that if you don't use the Hotshot 150 on a regular basis it is easy to forget how the buttons work. You just have to remember that the button on the left is what is used most of the time. Quick press ( QP ) the left button and it turns the light on. QP again and it will change modes. Press and hold and it will turn the lamp off after it does a quick short flash. Button on the right is basically just used to modify the different modes or to put another way, it will vary the duration of the different flash types. Only on steady mode does the right button vary the intensity of the light.

Looks like Bontrager also has another version of the Flare-R called the Flare RT. The RT is suppose to be able to work with some kind of wireless remote but the product description doesn't say where the remote is sold at ( FWICT). About the optic on the Flares; I can't help but notice though that both of the 2018 versions are using a dimpled optic so I'm not sure if this is something new or like the originals. Anyway I take your word that the Flare is bright.

As you know I like to test new things from time to time. Been a while since I've tested a brand name rear light. I was thinking about testing one of the newer Serfas lights and some of them look to be very interesting. I might trek on down to the local Trek bike store and see if they will let me demo one of the flares. Sadly I can't do that with the Serfas lights. Only way for me to get one of those is on the web. Anyway Serfas is selling an improved model of the original Shield light that they now call the Spectra 150. Brighter than the original ( which was damn bright btw ) the Spectra has a better mode selection, an auto-safety mode to extend run time and some mini-LED's ( COB leds ? ) inside the lamp to increase visibility from the sides. At $60 they are reasonably priced. Wish I could pick one up at a local store. I like having the option of easily returning the item if it is not up to my expectations. Too bad none of these are sold at REI.

JohnJ80

I had looked at this yesterday and noted that when I mounted it on my bike and stood back about 50 feet. Your comment got me to thinking, so I went back and checked - there are distinctly 4 LEDs behind the lens. The lens does not combine them into as much of a single beam as does the Flare. I'd take a picture of it, but it's going to be next to impossible to do - the lens is more transparent and less translucent than on the Flare.

Thanks for clearing that up on the light intensity buttons. I was going half blind looking at the light trying to get that to work. I don't ever use the light in steady mode, so that means I can just disregard the intensity button and not worry about it. Very helpful.

I guess my bottom line on the Flare and Cygolite is that I think the Flare has better mounts, a simpler interface and is slightly smaller in size but yet provides similar if not better visibility from astern than the Cygolite.

The Flare RT is just a controllable ANT+ light. My understanding is that it can be controlled by the Garmin and other computers that support that ANT+ profile and will turn them on and off accordingly. According to my LBS, the light is the same brightness as the regular Flare.

I do think the Flare has superior optics to the Cygolite 150. By nice if the Cygolite 150 had the Flare's lens. That would be a killer light, IMO. On the other hand, at 65 lumens, the Flare does pretty well on battery.

I would love to hear what you think about the Flare - or any other light, for that matter. You and I always seem to come to about the same conclusions on lights so I'd be interested to see if we concur here too.

J.

01 CAt Man Do

Pretty sure mine has one LED. Please note what the Cygolite website says about the Hotshot 150:

Quote taken from the Cygolite website:
Is it possible that the one you have is a counterfeit / Chinese clone?

JohnJ80

Then REI is selling Chinese clones. I'm sure REI deals directly with Cygolite for orders and doesn't get them from distributors (the point were most of the fakes enter the system).

I should be more accurate - I see 4 distinct dots when I look directly at the lens from 50' back. I could be some artifact of the lens or something too. I didn't take it a part.

To be clear, I believe all of these high bright LEDs use multiple LED die in a single package. I don't think it's possible to get a "single LED" Light that bright. But that's just being nitpicky. They mean it has one package with multiple LED die in it.

Either way, putting both side by side, I see only a marginal difference in brightness between the Flare and the Cygolite 150. Part of that is how your eyes see light (logarithmically) but I think the biggest thing is that the lens on the Flare is much better. The Flare does a better job, IMHO, of being seen than the Cygolite 150.


J.