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You need to be seen to be safe. (Photo: Plan Bike)

Cycling as serious transport in a country without a commitment to it requires a lot of guts and a lot of great gear. Over the last year, I’ve gone through a lot of money and strife finding that gear. Below is one of a series of posts sharing my experience with gear and the needs it fills.

This entry is about visibility: seeing and being seen. Reflectors are great but are drowned out by ambient light. Even at night, reflectors only work when they are shined upon. In turns, by the time lights hit your reflectors, it is too late. Bike lights increase your visibility anytime and anywhere. Consequently, this post is about lights.

Being Seen
Unseen cyclists are the most likely to get hurt or killed. That makes being seen essential. The lack of safe bike ways and the distracted nature of texting drivers makes being seen a serious challenge. Fortunately, a new wave of LED (light emitting diode) lights has revolutionized bike lights to meet this essential challenge. Thanks to these new LEDs, you can now make your bike incredibly conspicuous day or night with lights that weigh ounces, cost few dollars, last hours, and run on the same batteries as a digital watch.

Seeing
If you are cycling as serious transport, sooner or later you are going to be cycling at night or dusk.  In that situation, you need a light that reaches far enough ahead to give you time to react. If you are moving at 15 MPH (aka 22 feet/second) you need more than one second to react to upcoming turns. Otherwise, you find yourself slamming on the brakes a lot or going ridiculously slow.

For city biking at night, this can be less critical because of all the ambient light from cars, shops, and street lights. However, dedicated bike paths in the city or elsewhere tend to be woefully lacking for street lamps. Given this, night riding requires a light that fully illuminates at least 25 yards (aka 3 seconds) ahead of you and preferably much more.

Although LEDs have met the first visibility challenge (being seen), they’ve struggled to meet the second (seeing) without considerable cost and weight. Nevertheless, that is starting to change as well.

In this post, I won’t bother recounting most of the lights I have bought because most sucked. Nor, will I recount the features of each light. Let the reviewers do this. I’m simply listing the ones I’ve used that worked for me and why.

The Light for Being Seen
For being seen, the Planet Bike 1-watt LED has been a great light. When I bought it, it cost $40 which was double what some lights costs but I wanted something light, powerful, and longlasting and this seemed to deliver. Bright as it is, I learned the hard way that it cannot light your way on an unlit road so I am only listing it as a light for being seen. Nevertheless, it is decent for night biking on well-lit city streets. There is also a 2-watt version out now for $30. The added power will surely help but I’m betting you will still want more for seeing the road ahead.

The Light for Seeing
The need to light your way, puts you on a separate tier for lights. There are only a handful that can do it at anything close to a reaonable price. Amongst those, there is only one that is light and easy to use.

Lumens
Ultimately, what matters for lights is not wattage but lumens. The more powerful lights list the number of lumens they produce. From my experience, you want no less than 200 lumens to light your way. Sadly, most lights that deliver that require heavy battery packs with clunky cables that must be strung all over your bike. These lights also cost about $1/lumen and up. Happily, there is a light using yet another wave of new LEDs that resolves a lot of these drawbacks.

That light is the Exposure Diablo:

• no battery pack
• 1hr. @700 lumens
• 3hrs. @200 lumens
• All day in blink mode
• Water-proof
• Elegant/sturdy design
• Quick-release clip: the best I’ve seen

I have no incentive to rave about this light other than my own satisfaction in using it. This light delivers light for roughly $0.28/lumen, far less than the competition. It does so in an elegant, extremely durable, and easy to use, package. At 700 lumens, you’ve got enough power to fully illuminate the next 50 yards in front of you. With an hour at 700 lumens or 3 hours at 200 lumens, you’ve got enough time to reach your destination. The sealed aluminum casing has endured drops at high speed and heavy rain without failing or really scratching that much. The battery is built into the slender hour glass aluminum body which also works great as a regular flash light. It does have a proprietary charger because of the built-in battery but I already have a recharging routine for my phone. I simply charge this similarly and the battery life has been sufficient to get me through a ride on days I forget to charge.

I recently added an accessory to the Exposure Diablo which is the red, 70 lumen, tail light. It requires no batteries since it plugs into the back of the Diablo. The Diablo powers both just fine for the several hours I commute. This is just a fabulous light. No other light comes close.

The only drawback seems to be that it is tough to find: in North America, at least. Bike shops, like many sports gear shops, are filled with a lot of high-margin crap. It’s tough to get the good stuff in general but this light is especially tough to find even online. It did not even show up in a lot of reviews I found on the internet. I stumbled across it in some bike forum. Regardless, it is worth finding. Six months in, I couldn’t be happier.

As prices keep dropping and power keeps escalating with each new generation of LEDs, many of my points about power and price may soon become moot. What won’t become moot is the 3 second rule for biking in the dark. Even if you have ambient light, that won’t show a lot of potholes or cracks that can stop a road wheel dead in its tracks. Having a light that fully illuminates the next 3 seconds of your ride is a good thing.

Regardless, don’t let the dark discourage you from riding. Real statistics may say otherwise but in my experience drivers actually see a cyclist with lights better at night than they do in any other context. Given this, my reservations about riding at night have seemed mostly psychological. Overcoming those reservations has made evening outings more relaxing, thus more likely, and thus resulting in more of the benefits that PlanBike is all about.