Am about to ugrade me lights ready for this winter. Need advice on what lights to go for. At the moment there are several offers for hope led vision and their hid lights. Which one should i go for.
From what reviews I've seen the LED is probably a better bet but I've not tried the new ones. Mine are the originals & I find them fine for normal night riding although I do use a helmet light as well.
Its certainly a lot brighter than my old 10w Lumicycle HID after doing a comparison side by side.
4 power settings,low,med,high and max(960lumens,10w HID is about 500lumens) plus flashing mode.There is a large increase in power from low to med and then med to high and you can easily get by on med or high,max is just over kill.I've had just under 4 hrs runtime in high power setting too.The spread is excellent and the throw is as good as HID.
LEDs are good because you can keep switching them on and off to save power unlike HIDs and they have a much longer life aswell,HID bulbs are usually about £70 to replace.
These come with a helmet mount and extension lead too.Its a tidy unit and it does the business.
I've been looking myself for this winter and from what i can gather the hope 4 LED is the way forward. Maybe a bit big for the helmet but the best for the bars. It is what I going to order in the next week or so. Friends also use an exposure joystick on their helmet as back up.....
No need for anything more. Unless you're belting down really unknown, un-sighted trails and / or need full power for more then 2hrs (in which case get the endurance battery or turn down the brightness on the straights) the lights are fab.
So, if like me, you go training for between 1:40 - 2:30hrs on familiar trails or are doing MM, Click24, or SITS, then the LED 2 lights are perfect in my opinion.
No faults and beautifully built, small, light and just the ticket.
I have now used the Hope Vision 4 for about 4 weeks now and I think it good, however at the start it just started to switch itself off whenever it wanted to & going down a single track at night thats not the time to be without light!!!!!. This has not happened the last 3 times I have been out, but I will let you know if it happens again. Keep riding.
A risk you are prepared to run? Possibly £110 down the drain.
Better the Devil you know - I bought, it went wrong, they fixed it and told me to use silicone grease next time. Hope get my vote as I think you can appreciate.
Thanks guys, the guy on the phone said to try again, I did but crashed on Thur night when they went out again on a downhill bit between trees (ouch) they will be going back on Mon.
