How many Lumens should a bike light have? Chinese Bike Light Guide.
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- Опубликовано: 21 сен 2022
- A few years ago I made a video about Chinese bike lights. It proved quite popular. Ever since I get inundated with bike light companies asking me to review their lights and loads of questions from cyclists.
As it's that time of year where the nights are getting longer, I thought I'd revisit the topic with the help of flashlightbrand.com
🔗 Links
Wuben B2: bit.ly/WubenB2
Imalent R60C: bit.ly/IlamentR60C
Wuben Series: www.flashlightbrand.com/Wuben...
Imalent Series: www.flashlightbrand.com/Imale...
Home: www.flashlightbrand.com/
🎫 Coupon
Use coupon "CCFB" to save 10% on your order. 
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Thanks to your review on the 1800 Lumens bike light I am now a proud owner for over a year. This new 18000 Lumens light is like the surface of the sun.
Great to hear! Seriously I get a buzz hearing people take my recommendation and having a good time! 18,000... yeah, it's as crazy as you imagine.
Classic commentary & a great video! really interesting content. I ride often at night and this is a great video review of the goods that keep the night rides shinning bright. Thank you!
To me it seems it's not only the lumen (claimed), but the lens, the focus/dispersion, things like that matter a lot too.. anyway, I have a Gaciron V9M-1000 and my experience is similar to yours, I mostly use at 400, sometimes at 800, and when full darkness or I need to see further I'll turn up to 1k.. but it's always briefly and I'm back to 400.. Also, Gaciron delivers a very good quality and durability at a fair cost, also lots of accessories.. I recommend taking a look
Yup! My previous video featured a couple of Garicon lights. No complaints here.
When CREE LEDs first became a thing I was building my own lights for mountainbike riding because all you could get from companies like Niterider was about 900 lumens. Mine were about twice as bright as those. When racing 24 hour events the brighter the light the faster you can go. I blinded everybody and I don't even care. I'm amazed at how bright lights have gotten over the years but knowing how hot a light can get I don't think I would trust anything over 2 or 3 thousand lumens on a bicycle to last very long.
There are 5 CREE LED XHP-70 LEDs.2 with a light sweat of 8000Lm. ,a 10000 mAh battery.And in general, I agree, the main thing is to distribute these lumens correctly due to the correct secondary optics - uniform light filling without a hotspot and, of course, not cold shades with low CRI.
I remember when bicycle lights had incandescent flashlight bulbs (before Halogen) and were either powered by a Dinamo spun by pressing against the tire or regular old AA, C or D batteries. None of which were as bright as my now 8 year old Serfas True 150.
I think any light that's over 1000 (true) lumens needs to have a hard cut-off or low-beam setting for on-road use. As a cycling commuter, I've been blinded by some of these bright lights and takes a few seconds for my eyes to readjust after passing, which can be dangerous.
That happens to me everytime a car goes by.
Bought a gaciron light from you last review, good light still got it and running strong, been through a few heavy downpours as well
Please note that the vast majority of headlights and lanterns of the Chinese pro-va, instead of the claimed original CREE LEDs, have copies (low-quality fakes)."The leader in the production of copies is LatticeBright, which copies almost the entire range of CREE. They even have similar markings. There are still many unknown manufacturers who do not advertise their products. "(c)Success in the development of the channel.
How can people tell if they're legit or fake?
@@ChinaCycling Compare under a microscope with the original or measure and compare with the datasheet pro-la -Volt-Volt Ampere characteristic of the LED.
The swivel for the light is good if you have a Mtb handlebar that's swept back.
I love the look of that R60C light, ideal for walking the dog!
If your dog is scared of the dark. 😂
Another great show ❤️
When are you going to do a video with Luke at Trace Velo
You two would be great 👍
My current bike light is made by NiteRider and is 9ng00 lumens at its brightest setting. This is very bright and as much as I'll ever need. You're not going to override the light (for those who are unfamiliar with this term, it means that your light lights up so much of the road ahead of you, and if it's not very bright or the beam doesn't reach out far enough, you could ride quickly enough so as not to see a potential danger until it was too late to brake in time) and it's small and light weight.
This light is brighter than my future.
PMSL.
I am happy with my Exposure MK9. The beam is great, goes on the road in a line rather than spread out into people's eyes.
I used ride my bike from Salinas to Prunedale Ca. I had a Night Sun with the battery that looked like a water bottle. If I had both lights on it was equivalent to a motorcycle light. Drivers would always flash their headlights at me because of how bright it was. The funny thing is when they rode past me and then shake their heads when they realized it wasn’t a car but a bicycle
I hope you test rear lights in the future.
Hey spotted some EE Brakes on your bike, are those the Chinese version on aliexpress? I bought some myself and plan to do a review soon. Recently posted a comparison of the Fizik Arione 00 you did a while ago with the real Fizik saddle. Huge fan.
Hey Nicolas, good to hear! Mine are actually legit EE Brakes. It's ironic that those AliExpress sellers won't ship to Chinese addresses. (They're scared of being found out / reported.)
Just a heads up. Don't buy any lights from x-tiger, the rechargeable batteries they use are the cheapest batteries of the worst quality and not the mAh stated in the description.
So I recently bought the Towild 600 lumen that was recommended on your last video. Except for the micro USB, it’s wonderful :-)
Micro USB, FML. Can we all just get on USB-C already? Oh, and I forgot to mention in the video (because I hadn't yet noticed) the small tail-light with the Wuben is micro USB. 😆😆😆😆😆😆
18000 is nuts would be good for hiking but 1200 is probably the best for cycling I have an 800 that is ok on back roads in the UK but I couldn't do off road with it.
Hi, i have a x80gt from acebeam and i want to install it on my bike, i cant find anything to install it, do you guys have any ideas
I would prefer something wider than the small one you have
3:06min... did he say its 2020? Are these products 3 years old?
I have a e-scooter that's capable of over 60 mph. The headlight is a tight focused beam, but probably still not up to the task for 40 mph riding in the dark. With so many options out there, I'm not sure what to get!
I have an Astrolux BL02 (1200 lumen), and it is OK for road cycling, but I could use more offroad. Something like 3000 lumen.
Some of my commute is on dark unilluminated roads. I'd love to find a light with hi and low beams which hasn't a 200 euro price tag on it. 😎♥️🚴♀️🚴♂️🚴♀️🚴♂️🚴♀️🚴♂️
I have 800 lumen flashlight and i find the 400 lumens to be my sweet spot.
Good enough brightness and consumes less battery for a longer ride. I just turn it to 800 lumens when the road gets too dark
Beamforming with a good low beam cutoff. Everything else is rubish if y are not alone in the bush. Headlights with a group of asymmetric elliptic LED lenses made of acrylic material is used in motorbikes and scooters. They are performing beamforming like a 5x sized reflector for a halogen bulb. There are offers of using two of the lenses with 10W and 1200 lumen for 15$, fork mounting included.
More lumens the better for me. I rather brighten up the whole rode. And for me where I live I have on coming cars that like to put there brights on me to the point I can't see and I like to have a light to blind them as well. Yea I'm that kind of rider.
Yes, of course you need it. You save it for drivers who know you are there but insist on putting their high beam in your face.
There is a great channel on RUclips that actually tests and measures these type of lights against their alleged lumen claims. Apparently....MOST lights (sold on Amazon that is) only output 2% to 3% of their actual lumen claims.
Yeah, it's crazy.
(Looks down at my pants) "Bigger is ALWAYS better!" 😭
The lumen rating of a light by itself is not very useful. That is because the reflector of the light and the number of LEDs will produce beams with greatly different patterns. The two terminologies that are useful are the throw and the spill. The throw is how far the beam will produce a useful brightness and the spill will determine how wide the useful beam is. You can have a very low lumen light with a tight beam that will illuminate the road 1000 yards ahead of you, but you would not be able to see the road on either side of you right next to the bike. A floody light with a lot of spill outside of the bright beam at the center will give good illumination of the road on either side of you. For bicycling you are not usually going at speeds where a lot of throw is required, so a light with a decent central hot spot but with a reasonably *wide spill* might be the best choice because it allows cars to see you from a much wider angle. . The thing is that lights with wide spills usually have to have more lumens to keep the candela for any given point in the scene bright enough to be useful. For daytime safety, a higher lumen with a wide hot spot but low spill may be a better choice.
That was a close pass at 1:11!!!
You think you want the 18.000lm light but when you have them ypu quickly realised they're basically useless unless you're aiming it at something more than 300meters away. It's just too bright.
Anything above 4.000lm is basically useless. I learned this the expensive way.
Hahaha, it's true. Our brains have been brainwashed by bike marketing to always want the biggest number.
Lol my mtb friends like to make themselves feel better when they say they spent 200 on a light that ends up being identical to my $35 aliexpress light and just as bright, I got a newboler 3000lumen and it's insane
its not about the lumens which for bike lights are quoted as LED lumens, not system lumens (or delivered lumens) - but about how you use your lumens. If most of your distribution is pissing up into the sky you are simply carrying around extra weight for no reason .
it is not cause it advertises 18000 lumens, that is will be 18 000 lumens for 5 or 10 minutes...remember that.
one thing to remember is to make sure you light is positioned and aimed properly so it does not blind oncoming drivers
For sure. Beam pattern is pretty important!
This is why I have my lights mounted under the handlebars and slightly pointing downwards. A few years ago on another video about lights, I was in a discussion on whether it is good to have the lights mounted on top or below the handlebars.
@@antonpeterson1245 I notice there is a serious lack of lights which you mount under the handlebars. It looks a lot nicer and less cluttered. Even more advantages as it will probably more stable light output referring to shaking etc. Unfortunately most, especially with a beam patern, will light up the stars when mounted that way. I have a lumintop B01 which is mounted under the handlebars. but I have to use a rubber band to make sure it doesn't fall out of that holder when going over bumps. The light looks like a flashlight, is round and has a bit of a reflector but not really to my liking. No real cutoff line ( no STVZO approvement, look it up if you have never heard of it), Well easy to mount it so it lights the road and not the sky and looks a lot more stealth than mounted on top. I would love to find that discussion.
@@Luke-san I use 2 Cateye Volt lights on one bike which uses mounts where you have to slide it onto the bracket and then to take off you have to push on a tab and then slide off again. My other light is a Lezyne which can have GoPro mount attach to it (solid) so I'm all good, but thank you for the recommendation.
Well recommendation. I did not talk about the quality of it, one of the reasons I am still looking for something else.
I don't use USB C.
Goddamn! I need that 65000 lumen version 🤣
The sun in your hands.
@@ChinaCycling Looking on the website it seems there are 100,000 versions too! All turbo modes though, which drop back down to 13000 to prevent burnout, but that's still *insane* compared to the big boys on the market, such as the Magicshine 8000 and others down at a mere 4-6000!
At some point its just unnecesary. Better focus on good lenses that distribute the light on the road instead of blinding incoming traffic.
Should have turned the 18000 on those dogging. Would have made for fine RUclips viewing.
Would have been over-exposed and just look like horror-p0rn.
Measuring lights in lumens is the same as measuring engines by their cubic capacity.
It doesn't factor in efficiency, just how much power the circuitry is sapping.
Measure lights in lux, that's the horsepower equivalent
Nice video!
Thanks! Think your product is good. Do you guys have a GoPro mount for it? Some people were asking...
400 lumens
Yeah, for most conditions I think 400 is fine.
18000 lumens loool mine is 300 and I think it's enough for road cycling
Good lights from established brands are inexpensive these days. Cygolite, Light and Motion, Lezyne, Bontrager etc only cost a little more than these Chinese brands and are very reliable, have great beam patterns, offer plenty of light and come with GoPro mounts (a critical item for me). Ten years ago when Chinese lights were a small fraction of the price of a more established brands I might have been willing to take a chance, but these days no thanks. Something like the Cygolite Metro 1100 is about $90 and basically perfect for road riding.