Lights

Sorted! Used a stem GoPro mount from eBay with the cat3bit

Tidy! I failed to find any single bolt mounts, that works nicely.

That's very pleasing

Looks like a wet place to mount a light.

I stuck a brompton mudguard flap behind a light I had mounted to a similar place on a pizza rack, worked pretty well

Is an Exposure Sirius Mk10 and Tracer a good combo for through the night riding?
Both have 36hr run times on their lowest settings but I'm not sure if that (or slightly higher settings) will be good enough to see the road.
Purely for road riding, not off road.

Or if anyone has better recommendations let me know.

I have the MK9 and Tracer combo and would not recommend doing through the night rides with these, maybe in high summer on lit roads but not in current EU winter circumstances.
The 36h hour runtime is on the lowest ever setting, which for me is too dim to see anything at regular road speeds.
For the MK9 I cycle between the H, M and L in the second setting these days, depending on the ride start time, roads I plan to take and ride length (+ some contingency for safety)
I do not have real world running times as I am too afraid to run out and be left in the dark. :(

If I would plan a through the night I would use the set I have paired with a bigger front like a Strada.

But looking at the price I would actually just get a dynamo wheel and light, or get something from the orient.

Got myself the Lupine SL Mono - very impressed with overall build quality.

Has a replaceable battery pack if need be and doesn't require an external battery pack. I've mounted it using a Go Pro mount. Sits nicely underneath the Garmin.

I might get their rear light as well. I like the Exposure TraceR I currently have but I've had to replace two rubber bands already. If one would break during the ride I'd probably wouldn't notice and I'd lose the light. The Lupine rear light has a permanent fixture on the rails and looks cleaner.

not bright enough, strada is their road specific one i think

Is an Exposure Sirius Mk10 and Tracer a good combo for through the night riding?

It depends, Richmond Park, sure, dark country lanes, less so.

@LeMesjeu Yeah that was my worry. I've got a dynamo set up on my other bike and I love it but not looking at one for this bike.

@amey @spinnnout Alright, thanks. I was looking at their more powerful lights but cannot stomach the price of them. The riding is overnight audax type stuff and fast road riding.

What should I be looking for then? The prices for Exposure and Supernova are well out of my tax bracket. My main concern is the long run time needed.

buying a used Exposure isnt a bad thing, they will doo all kind of service for it, esp batt replacement is quite cheap.

Now that you say that...

I don’t know if I’ve just been lucky or not, but I’ve an Exposure Diablo that will be ten years old early next year, and it’s still working perfectly. The battery life is still good too, which is pretty incredible really.

I have a couple of other Exposure lights, one of which required a new charging port, and they happily repaired it for a few quid.

I was looking at their more powerful lights but cannot stomach the price of them. The riding is overnight audax type stuff and fast road riding.

If youre doing long overnight riding on a budget (6+ hours) I think a dynamo is the only way to go really. You'd need a properly heavy and expensive battery light setup otherwise.

For what it's worth I use a Sirius Mk 10 which is excellent, and bright enough for my after work rides. But its not enough for more than 3 hours at adequate brightness.

See if you can get an outbound from USA. Can be paired with a 25000 mah battery pack for lots of hours at full brights.

Maybe importing is costly. I have no idea about that.

Nor do I know if it's a great idea for you.

Any vintage lighting fans out there . Should really get rid of these from my mtb night riding days . The left one was a diy, which was the norm when the led trend kicked off..
They still work well, but are crazy heavy, and I busted one steel frame from having so much weight in the bottle cage ..

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If you find a good cheap solution let me know, as I'm in the same boat.

I currently have a ravemen pr1200 but without the remote switch. I spent last week in a mixture of not seeing where I was going and blinding people in cars while descending and climbing. The highlight (yes) was inching closer to a woman in a car who was waiting to let me pass at titsey and seeing her face turn further away as I got closer but the light was at 400ish lumen setting which is a reasonably useless in between setting.

The ravemen is cheaper but all the cut off lenses means you can't mount them upside down. A remote/ akitv type setting would be useful for dark hilly roads but is cash.

The fact that noone has commented 'this question is asked every x amount of pages and the answer is always y, you idiot' as people like to do on this forum makes me wonder if there is an obvious option.
When I have some time I'll look at the alixpress options and maybe take a risk on that. Other than that, maybe just the expensive lights but second hand (which I'd honestly prefer rather than buying something new).

I could be tempted by another dynamo, I love my SON set up but this is going on a fast road bike so all the wiring feels less elegent but I suppose thats not so important.

What about a Lumintop B01? Cut off beam (but not stzvo) and replaceable 21700 batteries. 5h on high (550 lumens) and then just swap batteries. The mount looks bulky but actually works really well (including offroad). Also usb-c charging and can be run off a usb powerbank.

I wanted to ride my fast(er) bike on LEL but didn't want to build a carbon dynamo wheel. So I took one of these and 5 21700 batteries. Worked great. Now it's used for before work rides in the Lakes. Thou if you're into retina burning, lots of lumens white led light, it's not that.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33046014882.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1.5ba64bdcHg6R6L&algo_pvid=de109f3d-8698-47e4-87f5-e050884c6cf5&algo_exp_id=de109f3d-8698-47e4-87f5-e050884c6cf5-0&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21USD%2153.99%2131.85%21%21%2153.99%21%21%4021038dfc17011779696967127eedd4%2112000029659885148%21sea%21UK%21185278415%21&curPageLogUid=HxlHRxpSAwcq

And good quality 21700 batteries from Torchy the Battery Boy: https://www.torchy.co.uk/product-category/21700-batteries/

I think Fenix make a replaceable battery bike light but the batteries might be proprietary.
Other ones I've seen mentioned but never used are the ENFITNIX Navi800 and ToWild BR800 (both use small capacity 18650 batteries thou).

I was into this back in the day, first with 12v halogen bulbs in plumbing fittings and then later led optics and bflex controllers.

Is that a lumicycle housing?

Wow perfect! This is sort of exactly what I was looking for.
How long would you say you got out of a battery on settings needed to ride in the dark?

Even though I've used it loads I couldn't give you exact runtimes. I run it on Medium most of the time (which in theory has 11h runtime). I think I used 4 batteries for the whole of LEL and would probably put it on high for some downhills.

I also found it really good to have a small flashlight with moonlight mode strapped to the side of my helmet to illuminate my garmin (so you can turn off the backlight) and to use when off the bike to find things in bags etc. I used the Skilhunt E2A with a lithium AA battery (+spare), which has a 5 lumen mode which lasts ~48 hours.

Yep lumi housing originally halogen that I dropped some led bits into. My very first light had a desk lamp tapped to the stem. Cannot bring myself to bin em..