I'm looking into buying some new lights and would appreciate some advice. I ride on back roads/country roads for my evening training rides, and my current light is just not up to the job. It let's oncoming traffic see me, but dos not light up the road enough for me to ride safely (i.e. without disappearing into the scenery!!)

What do I need??
- Single light/double light
- 2.4w/10w/25w

Any and all advice gratefully received (before I do myself a serious injury!!)

I have vistalite's Nightstick 25's. Its 3 lights, 3 chargers and 3 batteries (1x 15w and 2x 5w). 2 for handlebars and 1 for helmet, use as many as you need at a time. Great for the worst of roads. Cars now dip their lights for me, and i've even had a 4x4 reverse back for me on single a track road as they haven't a clue that i'm "just a bicycle" until i've passed them! Not took them proper offroad yet, but i have all the faith in them for when i do.
They're £150 from merlin cycles, which is a bargain cuz they £200 from everywhere else!
http://www.merlincycles.co.uk/acatalog/VistaLights.html

£150 is quite expensive, and more than I can afford. I was hoping to spend about half as much as that.

In that case, you can get Vistalite NS15. That is 2 lights, but just 1 battery and 1 charger. You can also get a helmet mount so you can put one on your helmet and one on the bike. As the whole system is modular and you can buy all the parts individually you could upgrade/expand your system as you feel fit and when you have the cash. Wiggle stock loads of the individual parts for when upgrading is needed.

check out the head mounted light for £67 here, the www.rush.uk.com 2.5hour run time.

Loads of other options to, prices are stupidly cheap, wouldn't pay £150 for that Vista Setup, although I've got nearly the same, 15, 10 and 5watt vista's, with 3 sticks, picked them up second hand, selling soon to go HID!!! Which is waiting repair :(

Dominic, I'm in a similar position as you. Currently I'm using a load of Cateye LED OptiCube lights, which work pretty well for commuting and the occasional easy off-road bit (parks/towpaths).

I'm looking at spending between 100 and £200 though as cheap systems won't really offer me much of an advantage over the LED lights (but will add a load of weight with heavy SLA Battery!)

I'm considering:

- A system from therush (probably the 2.5 HID)
Vistalites
Fireballlights.co.uk
USE exposure lights (Available from http://www.absolutelybikes.com/acatalog/MTB_Lights.html")

- Finishing my DIY Halogen build with a battery and charger - maybe Li-ion.

Sorry, actually not really in a similar position - should have said - also looking at buying new lights.

I think you probably want a Cateye EL300 5 led job (like I have for commuting), very bright batteries last ages (as it's LED) and they are onl £26 on cyclexpress at the moment:
http://www.cyclexpress.co.uk/products/Cateye_HLEL_300_570.asp

Or this one (EL500) which will be even brighter:
http://www.cyclexpress.co.uk/products/HLEL_500_1409.asp

I've got the Rush HID's, they did look very good, I ballsed mine up fiddling, waiting on them to get back, Getting them into the country seems to be a issue.

Check out the Light & Motion Vega's, 10watt+, small light, blue light, it's a 3watt SLED ( might be 5 ), I've been using a 1watt SLED off road recently, it's just usable so 3watt should be fine. £112.50 on wiggle.

the 1watt SLED, Smart Nova is better Ollie, £26, the new £36 EL500 is the same power, more of a spot nothing around the Nova has enough light everywhere to be useable. 30 hour run time, 4 AA's

£46 EL 500, sorry.

Interesting, I think I've got enough commuting lights now though (I have EL200, 300 and 400!)

Going to get a more serious rechargable system next (as I said above).

i bought 3x21 super bright led torches from ebay for 20£ and built the mountings myself (helmet and bar). about 50 hours of runtime and they are damn good. you can suppliment them with a 5w on the bars or something if you really like but i have never had cause to since they are easily enough for off road. they run on 3xAAA each.

the only con is that they get shipped from HK and so the wait can be a week or two.

http://stores.ebay.com/Allteamgo_W0QQsspagenameZl2QQtZkm

If just starting out get these

There seems to be a bewildering selection of lights on the market. I quite like the idea of having the twin lights though, as opposed to the single (some of the roads I ride on really are very dark). As my means are limited, it seems the Vista lights option would allow me to upgrade in the future i.e. buy a single light now, and upgrade to a twin set when I can afford it. However, after checking out the links provided by Ollie and Dr Jekyll (thanks guys), the choice has been made even more difficult.

What is the difference between a £40 light and a £150 light? If they are both pumping out 10W (or whatever), why is one so much more expensive? What should I be looking for?

the difference is usually in the battery. nimh batteries have no memory so its harder to mass them up with bad charging / overcharging. nicad on the other hand degrade over time. its a false economy - buy the nimh.

there can be differences in teh light also. i.e. the quality of the halogen bulb and how long this will last until it pops but this is less important as you can just go into maplin.co.uk and get another for £1.50 or something.

mass them up -> should be -> mess them up
teh -> should be -> the

...think its time for some coffee :)

the only difference between NiCad and NiMH is that NiMH has no cadmium in it.

If used with Smart chargers, both have the same lifespan and advantages disadvantages.
All this nonsense about niCad's is because when they first came out they were charged by std chargers which could not shut off the current to suit the charging mode.
NiCad's with a Smart charger are just as good as MiMH.

NimH is better from an environmental point of view though

ooh didnt know that... nimh are lighter though as well arent they?

check out my exposure lights on singletrack forum.

NiMh have a higher capacity, but NiCad's can discharge quicker, so might be better for 35watt lights!!