gecho

https://www.bumm.de/en/products/kurv...365cla%20.html

Levels the light when leaning, and it turns the light when going into a curve. Aimed at e-bikes, but since its effectively just a light gimbal it probably doesn't use much power.

znomit

Video

rumrunn6

that's great. I've been experimenting w/ 2 lites this winter. 1 on the bars, 1 on the helmet. I appreciate this ingenuity!

atwl77

Interesting. Reminds me of the auto-panning feature in simracing games that help you properly see the apex when turning with low-FOV monitor settings.

2_i 

As someone encountering cyclists coming from the other direction at night in the streets, I detest the helmet lights there, as they usually blind me and require precautions to pass the other person safely. Of course, lights mounted on the bike can also be poorly aimed, but that is less common with them.

rumrunn6

I'm mostly in the woods but your situations are interesting. in my experience, in my area, (when riding on a 2-way road) a helmet light isn't any brighter than a car headlight. a biker is further away from you because they would be on the shoulder across 2 lanes of traffic, traveling in the same direction as cars. maybe I'm not understanding your situation

2_i 

My situation is of dark mixed pedestrian bike paths or dark narrow streets. The problem is of the light being nearly as bright as for a car but elevated far off the ground. The rider would additionally rise the head when approaching and look at me. At this point I would lose capability of resolving anything on my side, have to slow down and pray that I do not run someone over or end up in a ditch. When you are in a car and someone blinds you with a high beam, you can give them the same medicine and they often react but on a bike you do not have such a recourse. I try to put the hand over my eyes.

rumrunn6

oh yeah I totally agree! we have a nice long paved path that I like to ride, sometimes after work. this time of year it gets tricky. using lights becomes more precise. I've been blinded many times & even when I try to do the right thing I get complaints against me. it seems the best thing, on that paved trail, is the dimmest light possible, with a narrow beam, pointed down quite a bit, on the bars, not the helmet. the best riders seen to be moving at a good clip, have 1 modest front light, on steady, with a narrow beam, pointed down somewhat, on the bars, not the helmet. I strive to be like them

Troul 

still waiting for the HID bicycle light invention. Guess the large laser pointer lights will just have to do for now.

SpedFast

To the original topic-seems like a gimmick to me.

gecho

Busch & Muller had a 10W HID headlight called the Big Bang. It was physically large, expensive and needed expensive servicing after 1000 hours of use. Modern LEDs have eclipsed its capabilities at a far lower price.

2manybikes

I bought a Lupine 16w HID about 20 years ago, that was before high power LEDs. The new LEDs are better now.

cjenrick

i get blinded on the bike path too. and i have blinded other people. and i get blinded by cars. blinded, is that a word? can i say that here?

if you are on a long ride out in the country on the bike path, your night vision kicks in so that any light coming your way is going to seem really bright.

especially true if you are riding at night with no light and someone comes your way with 900 lumens. this happened to a poor unfortunate soul i met out on thee bike path, funny thing is, he didn't have any brakes either. all of a sudden he ducks his head and starts his feets to draggin in an effort to stop, looking very nervous i might add,

pedestrians on the bike path are also in the crossfire. they usually have no lights except maybe a signaling flashlight, the other night i approached a couple on the trail at night, i put my glove over my lamp as i was passing, letting out just enough light through the fingers in order to navigate. they said "Thank You! so this might be my new thing. never had this issue with the double c cell cateye back in 84.

i wear a baseball cap when i ride instead of a helmet, so that bill on the front makes a great visor for shielding out unwanted lumens. i should wear a helmet, i own a giro helmet, but at my age, how much of my life would i save? 1.5% ? that's why i don't kill myself. what's the point?

watch out at night for those BMX punks with the ratty backpack, no lights and no brakes. they be runners and they might be packin.

question: you are out on the bike path in the country at night, alone, and someone on the side of the path asks for help with their flat tire. do you ride on by or offer assistance?

i got a guy who keeps shouting at me late at night when i am on my Winco run. "hey John! it's me! come on over here!" this has happened about 5 times already.
my name ain't john and i ain't stoppin to say hi.

Troul 

a durable reliable 25W compact 5500 hours HID would be just perfect!

10 Wheels

$112.00

rumrunn6

the creeps come out at night. we have them in our area too

cyccommute 

On any road wide enough for 2 cars, rumrun6’s point is still valid. The separation between bicycles in that case make the problem you describe minimal unless the rider is a salmon.

However, I avoid riding MUPs at night but not for the reason you put forth. You may have a problem with a helmet light on a MUP but think of what a pedestrian has a problem with. Many pedestrians aren’t using lights and are night adapted. A bicyclists passing with any kind of light is going to ruin that night adaption for several minutes. In other words, your passing with lights is going to plunge the pedestrian into darkness.

Your “night vision” is ruined because you are running lights. Light from another source may be a bit dazzling but doesn’t have the same effect as going from no light to bright light to no light again.

2_i 

I do not have in practice other choice than using a multiuse path along the particular route. The only other nominal option is a road with rapid traffic and lacking a cycling lane. Whatever you do around other people is a compromise. My lights are all with upper cutoff and hitting the ground close enough that they avoid eyes of the pedestrians. Incidentally, around my area those walking dogs will often have reflective elements and runners are likely to have blinkies and, at times, LED strings. There are street lights here and there or illumination in front of houses, so my lights are not particularly standoffish. Yet a bright helmet light shone into your face disables you. From time to time, of course, you encounter cyclists with bright lights mounted on handlebars that aim too high and blind you too.

gecho

I actively try not to look at anyone's face or even in their direction while using my helmet light. It feels awkward, so I can see how people not giving it a second though constantly blind everyone they come upon. There are some full sized road signs in the park mounted low, and I've blasted myself many times accidentally looking right at them.

cyccommute 

You “compromise”. Pedestrians without lights suffer the same problem you do except when you leave, they are completely in the dark. If you are going to complain about how other cyclists use their lights, think about the way you use your lights.


It doesn’t matter where your lights are aimed nor that they have a cut off. The problem isn’t with the light hitting the eyes indirectly, the problem is with the way that eyes deal with light. There are two types of cells in the eye…rod and cone. The cones work well for bright light and recover quickly after being saturated. The chemical used to move the signal clears quickly. In the dark, however, the cone cells aren’t very sensitive but they are sensitive enough when there is a lot of light around.

Rod cells work in very low light and don’t need much light to trigger them. They are highly sensitive…a single photon is enough to trigger them… but they saturate with light very quickly and are slow to recover. During night vision adaptation, the rod cells are doing all the work. However when you ride by that pedestrian even with lights aimed down or with cutoffs, you flood the rod cells and once the light source is gone, the rods in the pedestrian’s eyes are no longer able to able to work. It takes several minutes for those cells to relax and go back to normal. Meanwhile, you are long gone,


Reflective vests spread the light out over a wide area in a rather random direction. They won’t overwhelm the rods. Blinkers and LED strings are usually red which is low energy wavelength that will not overwhelm the rods. Often night operations and stargazing are done with low intensity red lights because the light doesn’t overwhelm the rods.

House lights and street lights play havoc on night vision which usually means that people want more of them which ruins their night vision, which means they need more lights, etc. However, all of those lights are more dispersed than your headlamp. A 100 watt light bulb puts out similar lumens to a bike light but that light is radiating in all directions. The lumens/square meter is lower than if you use a reflector to project all that light out towards one spot.

Directly and close, a helmet light is dazzling but not disabling. It’s not like you have to stop riding and you absolutely can’t see the road in front of you. For the pedestrian without lights depending on night vision…true night vision, not what people think is night vision…your downward aimed lights are disabling. Everything around them is black for a least a few seconds and diminished for several minutes (up to 20).

Try a couple of experiments to see what I’m talking about. Experiment 1: While riding down the road, turn off your lights and keep riding. How well can you see?

Experiment 2: Put yourself in the shoes of the pedestrian and go for a night walk without lights. Have someone ride past you or just turn on a flashlight of a similar brightness to your bike lights. Then turn it off and see how well you can navigate.

Extra credit: Go talk to an astronomer and ask them about “night vision”. Running with lights on a bicycle is not that.

2_i 

Sorry, I am not going to continue this discussion

cyccommute 

So you won’t go see for your self what happens when you have actual night vision ruined.