Anyone use a 'torch' for night riding?

[Bearbonesnorm]

I just happened to be looking at the vast array of high powered torches on-line this morning and some actually look very good. It appears possible to get something with both a decent output and run times without breaking the bank. Anyone use one? I suppose the basic principle is very similar to a joystick or similar.

[Cheeky Monkey]

I used to ride with some Fenix torches that took two AA batteries. Were they P3? Literally a decade or more ago. Good though and still get used / are in my torch box for kids, camping etc.

I was buying some torches for work recently. Thing I noticed with a lot of then (well, some of the O lights, Fenix and Zebra (IIRC)) was although their max output was similar to "bike" lights it was only for a very short duration. Suspect it's because they are anticipated to be hand / head mounted for walking / running etc so will get hot and damage the LED. Stuff for bikes has higher, continuous output as I suspect they factor in airflow cooling whilst riding.

I'm no lights guru though

[Lazarus]

Also need to consider beam patterns as hand held ones are often just a spotlight ( which may or may not be ok for your needs )

Given how much you can get lights for £13 for a 700 lumen fr planet X I am not sure it's worth bothering as I doubt you save much

[Bearbonesnorm]

Given how much you can get lights for £13 for a 700 lumen fr planet X I am not sure it's worth bothering as I doubt you save much

It was the compact, all in one nature that's appealing John.

[ScotRoutes]

Both my Exposure bike lights are torches then, so my answer is "yes".

[benp1]

I used to, but I have quite a collection of torches because I'm a geek and so it was a straightforward thing to do with a twofish lockblock or similar

I ended up with exposures because I liked the runtime certainty/choice. But the big upside for torches (and some bike lights) is the ability to carry 18650 or other replacement batteries with you so you don't have runtime challenges in the same way

EDIT - if you were to browse somewhere like candlepowerforums or budgetlightforum you'd find many folks running torches as their bike lights

[Raggedstone]

Yes I bought an Ultrafire 501b years ago for £5 , a couple of 18650 batteries and a charger from Torchy still using it as a helmet light I like the option to be able to change batteries the only pain is having to cycle through the modes to increase brightness the middle setting is fine for most stuff , one battery lasted from 5 ish until 3 am on the bb200 . I keep thinking i should get something like a joystick then go out for a ride and spend the money on something else I don't need

[rudedog]

Ive just bought this, currently half price at wiggle for 40 quid. 1300 Lumens, has a replaceable battery and weighs a reasonable 120g so should be fine as a helmet light.

https://www.wiggle.co.uk/moon-meteor-vo ... ront-light

I’ve not got it yet so can’t comment but I’ve got other moon lights and they seem decent.

[Chrisps]

I use an Armytek Wizard WR Warm. Armytek is a Canadian manufacturer of "tactical" torches. but the Wizard is a "right angle" torch. It comes with a headband so you can put it on a helmet easily. The "warm" stands for a warm LED, so the beam has slightly less "paper lumens" than other lights, but warm light doesn't reflect off mist as much, so I find it easier to see by than normal blue hue LEDs.

The WR in the name means White / Red... it has both LEDs. I have a bike mount for it on my seat tube, so I can take it out of the helmet strap and run it as an extremely powerful rear flasher.

Runs on a single 18650 cell, so I can switch it around with my other 18650 items like my bike light and power bank.

Never tried it as a bar light, but it has a fairly wide beam profile, so should work relatively well.

Runtime is fairly standard for an 18650 torch (which is to say fairly good), but importantly, it uses constant power delivery for all but the top "turbo" mode... none of the silly constantly reducing output like Fenix do to claim ridiculous runtimes.

[Richard G]

Yeah, I've got a very small / light 18650 that works well on a helmet for shorter rides. Even has a little red filter that snaps on for use around camp.

[AndyTheBikeGuy]

My partner and I both used torches as helmet lights until we recently bought a joystick and a diablo to replace them after one stopped working consistently. Other than the conection fault never had a problem with them, but we rarely rode without a bar light too so beam pattern wasn't an issue. I can imagine if we'd used the one which didn't have an adjustable focus to make it wider beam it would have been pretty unhelpful on twistier descents, but the other one could switch from spot to flood(ish) which was much better. Ability to take spare batteries and then use around camp/car when packing up was always helpful.