All About Cycling - Led Front Lights

If you are one of those people that likes to stick to the routine of riding your bike to work no matter what the weather or the time of year then you need to make sure that you are well equipped for when the light mornings and long light nights of Summer turn into the dark mornings and early evenings / late afternoons of Autumn and Winter.

It doesn't have to be work that causes this. Maybe you just enjoy riding at night. No matter what your reason if you intend to ride in the dark then you need to ensure you are well equipped.

What equipment am I talking about? I am talking about appropriate lights. Lots of coutries have made it the law to be well lit at night. But, even leaving the legislation aside, you need to do the right thing from a health and safety point of view.

There are two main reasons for adding a light to the front of your bike and one of the reasons may make your choice more difficult.

The first is that you need to be seen by pedestrians and other traffic using the road. They need to see you coming so that they can take appropriate avoiding action if necessary.

The second reason, and possibly the more difficult thing to achieve is that you need to be able to see where you are going.

Producing light of sufficient power on the front of you bike, has until recently, meant having fairly hefty light units powered by batteries that needed to be fairly hefty themselves if they were to last more than a few minutes at a time.

There is another way of course, and that is to use lights powered by a dynamo which is driven by your wheels. This is fine and removes the need to continuously invest in new batteries but it makes it feel like you are riding through treacle due to the resistance the dynamo causes.

There is an alternative to both these solutions now though. Advancements in technology have meant that previously dim and pretty much useless for seeing where you are going LED lights have been replaced with bright and powerful LED units capable of not only making sure you are seen but also that you can see where you are going.

Some manufacturers such as Cateye and Exposure are now offering single LED lights rated in excess of 1500 candle power.

So, if you are in the market for new lights, don't discount out of hand the new generation of LED lights as they offer far more than they used to.