AAA/Rechargable Powered Lower Ln Headlights?

[vvill]

I would guess there’s quite a bit of variation in the Chinese/fleabay lights. Mine are machined aluminum and work okay for the $ I think, although the mounts I bought aren’t quite stable enough. I picked the model based on a recommendation on a forum somewhere.

I read somewhere once that harborfreight’s suppliers vary all the time and it’s mostly based on whoever wants to sell cheap to them/has excess stuff to unload so the quality varies a lot. No idea if it’s true or not.

[thecyclingeconomist]

I have a few majicshine’s. The CREE-XML leds are pretty awesome. For less than $100, it’s hard to go wrong (even if the actual lumens are less than the rated max). I have had one short-out completely, but soldering on a new wire worked fine. The other two have worked for nearly 2 years, with no problems.

[KS1G]

Depending on where you ride, a brighter than otherwise necessary light may come in rather handy to illuminate moving shadows that turn out to be pre-dawn / post-dusk ninjas, and to light up the dirty torn shreds of reflective material ninja-wannabes may have on their clothes. Just remember to dim/shield/point away when you have an oncoming cyclist so you don’t blind each other (also, I’ve seen ninjas try to hide in the glare-bubble of the colliding light beams – obviously an enhanced cross-ploarization effect of their cloaking silks).

[mstone]

@KS1G 33343 wrote:

Depending on where you ride, a brighter than otherwise necessary light may come in rather handy to illuminate moving shadows that turn out to be pre-dawn / post-dusk ninjas, and to light up the dirty torn shreds of reflective material ninja-wannabes may have on their clothes. Just remember to dim/shield/point away when you have an oncoming cyclist so you don’t blind each other (also, I’ve seen ninjas try to hide in the glare-bubble of the colliding light beams – obviously an enhanced cross-ploarization effect of their cloaking silks).

I was in my car this morning and was suddenly passing a ninja road jogger. It was early dawn, headlights on, about 20MPH on a quiet neighborhood street, the guy was in dark non-reflective clothing, angled from behind a car, and a low streetlight was sort of behind him and made him impossible to see until the angles changed. Another couple of inches to the right and I would have hit him and never seen him at all. I suppose the well-maintained sidewalk a couple of feet to his left is just “too hard” or some bullshit like that. I can only assume that these idiots really don’t understand how invisible they are. I see this one guy out a lot, I’m going to stop the car and talk to him next time. Other joggers in the same neighborhood stick to the sidewalk & wear lights & reflectors. I need to send them valentines.

[Tim Kelley]

@mstone 33354 wrote:

I suppose the well-maintained sidewalk a couple of feet to his left is just “too hard” … I can only assume that these idiots really don’t understand how invisible they are.

The too hard sidewalk on a residential road excuse is legit. Not being visible for any reason is not. Remember, everyone should be a PAL! http://www.bikearlington.com/PAL

mstone–come to one of our Lights For Bike Giveaways next month and we’ll give you some reflective straps to take home to pass out to ninja. Dirt finds giving them a reflector to be most productive.

[mstone]

@Tim Kelley 33404 wrote:

The too hard sidewalk on a residential road excuse is legit

I’m still unconvinced. If they really can’t run on the sidewalk, then they should run around a parking lot or use one of the two school tracks in the neighborhood.

[dasgeh]

@Tim Kelley 33404 wrote:

The too hard sidewalk on a residential road excuse is legit.

I’m calling BS on this one too. 1) As someone with really bad knees that started running later in life, multiple doctors have told me that runners should use orthopedic inserts, which negate the sidewalk/asphalt difference. and 2) Just because runners like it better doesn’t make it legal or a good idea. See e.g. cyclists running stop lights/signs.

[Tim Kelley]

@dasgeh 33411 wrote:

I’m calling BS on this one too. 1) As someone with really bad knees that started running later in life, multiple doctors have told me that runners should use orthopedic inserts, which negate the sidewalk/asphalt difference. and 2) Just because runners like it better doesn’t make it legal or a good idea. See e.g. cyclists running stop lights/signs.

This isn’t the forum to get into running form debates (FYI–I run in Vibram FiveFinger, hundreds of mile/multiple marathons/Ironmans). But yes, asphalt feels softer than concrete.

Yes, getting into the legality of running in the street is lot like cyclists running stop lights. Running against traffic in the bike lanes on Wilson or Fairfax is a bad idea, but running in the street in a sleepy residential neighborhood seems much more acceptable.

[mstone]

@Tim Kelley 33412 wrote:

Yes, getting into the legality of running in the street is lot like cyclists running stop lights. Running against traffic in the bike lanes on Wilson or Fairfax is a bad idea, but running in the street in a sleepy residential neighborhood seems much more acceptable.

In my experience in the residential neighborhoods they tend to stick to the more heavily trafficked streets with the double yellow lines rather than the really quiet back streets because they “feel safer” where there’s more traffic than where there’s nobody around. I would not say it’s anything like the cyclist stop light issue because they’re there because they simply don’t feel like going somewhere else, not because they don’t have options. (Unless they actually are running to work or the store or something at 6 in the morning and this isn’t purely recreational.)

[dasgeh]

@Tim Kelley 33412 wrote:

This isn’t the forum to get into running form debates (FYI–I run in Vibram FiveFinger, hundreds of mile/multiple marathons/Ironmans). But yes, asphalt feels softer than concrete.

Yes, getting into the legality of running in the street is lot like cyclists running stop lights. Running against traffic in the bike lanes on Wilson or Fairfax is a bad idea, but running in the street in a sleepy residential neighborhood seems much more acceptable.

My point is simply that “running on asphalt feels softer/is better for the body/etc” isn’t a legitimate excuse for breaking the law and doing something that is unsafe (i.e. running in the street when there is a sidewalk). Thinking about it more, it’s more like cyclists running stoplights (I mean really running, not jumping a little ahead of the green; and c’mon, we all have an alternative – just wait for green or almost-green), and not like the Idaho stop at stop signs. But one big difference is that cyclists running stoplights primarily endanger themselves (people in cars are conveniently protected by shiny metal boxes). If a runner takes to the street, especially a bike lane (as is common on Quincy), they put cyclists in danger — the cyclist may hit the ped and go down (without shiny metal box protection), or may have to swerve into the street. The incentives are off to deter this behavior.

So visible or not, runners should not be on the street when there’s a passable sidewalk.*

*I get that not all of the sidewalks in Arlington are passable — I don’t have a problem with runners taking to the street for a block to avoid real hazards. It’s the ones that take the street as a matter of course.

[CPTJohnC]

@dasgeh 33414 wrote:

So visible or not, runners should not be on the street when there’s a passable sidewalk.*

Ignore legality for a minute and consider: This is exactly how most motorists feel about bikes being on ‘their’ streets. We’re a danger because they can’t be bothered to learn to accommodate us. I’m not saying that the runner is ‘right’ or that street running is necessarily an awesome idea, but I don’t think I’m fond of your doctrinaire approach, either.

[dasgeh]

@CPTJohnC 33443 wrote:

Ignore legality for a minute and consider: This is exactly how most motorists feel about bikes being on ‘their’ streets. We’re a danger because they can’t be bothered to learn to accommodate us. I’m not saying that the runner is ‘right’ or that street running is necessarily an awesome idea, but I don’t think I’m fond of your doctrinaire approach, either.

It’s not just the legality, it’s the road design: when there’s a passable sidewalk, it’s safer FOR ALL INVOLVED for the pedestrians to be out of the street. Most of the type it’s safer for bikes to be on the street, hence why it’s legal for bikes to be there. There’s thought that goes into road design, and into the laws (though those are no always perfect). Finally, the law gives other users reasonable expectation. It’s reasonable as cyclists to expect drivers to expect bikes on the street because it’s legal for them to be there. It’s not reasonable for runners to expect cyclists and drivers to expect them to be in the road when there’s a good sidewalk, because it’s illegal for them to be there.

[mstone]

@CPTJohnC 33443 wrote:

Ignore legality for a minute and consider: This is exactly how most motorists feel about bikes being on ‘their’ streets. We’re a danger because they can’t be bothered to learn to accommodate us.

How do I accommodate something illegal and inherently unsafe? There’s no framework in which to build expectations. For cyclists in the road at night I have a set of expectations like “keep to the right” and “have a light or reflector” because those are legal minimums. (And I have no more patience for ninja salmon than ninja road joggers). Do we codify legal requirements for road joggers (which then imply that unsafe behavior is actually a right which needs to be accommodated in road design)? And could there ever be a serious policy discussion of lighting requirements for pedestrians?

[CPTJohnC]

@mstone 33454 wrote:

How do I accommodate something illegal and inherently unsafe? There’s no framework in which to build expectations. For cyclists in the road at night I have a set of expectations like “keep to the right” and “have a light or reflector” because those are legal minimums. (And I have no more patience for ninja salmon than ninja road joggers). Do we codify legal requirements for road joggers (which then imply that unsafe behavior is actually a right which needs to be accommodated in road design)? And could there ever be a serious policy discussion of lighting requirements for pedestrians?

Okay — but there seems to be agreement by all or most of the above posters that a) that runners can be in the street when there is no passable sidewalk, right? and b) fundamentally the person who gets to make the decision regarding “passability” in this instance is the runner, right (at least until that decision is challenged in some way)? so in the end the question is at best moot. If a runner is on the street, whether because there is no sidewalk (very common in my area), because the sidewalk is not passable, or because they prefer to be in the street (for whatever reason) the fact remains there should be a framework for pedestrian transit when not on sidewalks.

I’ll be honest: I’d rather come upon a well illuminated runner on the street than a ninja pedestrian transiting the street to get from passable sidewalk to passable sidewalk… yet that Ninja is functioning within the law, as I understand it, while the jogger probably is not.

But my real point was that from the perspective of most motorists, having bicycles on the street is a safety hazard and nuisance, and there’s little or nothing to stop them from attempting to have laws changed to the detriment of cyclists, right? Not to mention that the ‘letter of the law’ rarely means squat when put up against the ‘commonly held practice’…

[thecyclingeconomist]

I hate thread hacking… this isn’t helping people learn about lights anymore. Start a new thread? Also, as a husband and son of avid marathoners, black top is SIGNIFICANTLY softer on joints; especially when you consider the additive damage over years and thousands of miles of running. Just yield to the slower person, just as autos should yield to you. Karma… Do unto to others as you would “___________”…you fill in the blank.

[Author]

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