On a Zero Dark Thirty, Friday morning commute on the tandem, with rain no less, no less than three (3) MagicShine 808 lightheads will do. On dry days, one on the bars, one on the helmet works well. If this were a familiar route I probably would not bother with the helmet light, but we recently moved 2 miles further away from DW's worksite. This was only our third run, and the first using this particular routing. Stoker is blind, Captain partially sighted. I Need all the Lumens™ I can find. Yes, you can buy 1200lm and more in just one lighthead but you will NOT look like an oncoming GP9 locomotive with all the light coming from just one source. Just saying.
I had tried some of the zip tie wizardry displayed in earlier posts to affix the Gemini battery pack (4x18650 4400mah) to the back of my helmet but what I did in the end was buy an extension cable with a battery compatible socket on one end and a lighthead compatible plug at the other. I probably got it from Action LED. More than long enough to put the headlamp battery in my jacket pocket. I could mount it on the bike but I would forget and try to walk away from the bike after locking up.
Incidentally, I mentioned upthread that I had some Cygolite Metro 800's coming. Well they're here. So why did I use the aging (some of the lights are over 10yr old) MagicShine getup this morning? Because when the new lights arrived I simply couldn't resist doing a head to head comparo after charging up the new ones. I turned on the Cygolite first and it was alright but when I turned on the MagicShine it was like WHOMP. Simply no comparison! The Cygolites are going back to where they came from. Today. There really is no free lunch. I've tried the Amazon bargain lights because of posters in this and other forums but there really is no free lunch. My 4400mah pack cost $50 at least 3 years ago. I didn't think it was a screaming deal but I didn't think it was objectionable either. But I got curious about getting a MagicShine knock-off AND an 8800mah battery for $50. On high power my 3+ year old pack stays on the green power level for at least 20 minutes. The then new 8800mah pack went to blue after about the same amount of time! Twice the capacity and brand new and it couldn't outperform an older system. The lighthead was crap too. The genuine MS808 has a bright central spot with a wide corona of less bright but still useful light. The knock-off did not have that corona. It was just the central spot. Not a very useful item.. I expected much more from Cygolite than from the unbranded Amazon landfill debris. They probably will appeal to many. They obviously do. But when you've (literally) seen the light ...
From now on, make mine, genuine, mighty fine, MagicShine.
