I plan to buy a riding flashlight, have searched lots of websites, like flashlight BBS, talk about flashlight etc, and study in the BBS of Shandong University. I sort out of these materials and share them with you.
I don’t think incandescent lamp is suitable for riding flashlight. Continuous spectrum and excellent color rending are the advantages of the incandescent lamp. Simply said is we can see things clear comfortably. So lots of people propose to take the incandescent lamp when outdoor because they can see the pavement clearly. But incandescent lamp has large power and easily to get burned, so people take spare batteries and lamps, it’s acceptable to take spare batteries but it’s troublesome to take lamps. Anyway, I don’t know much about incandescent lamp, you guys have interest in it could search in the forum yourself.
HID is High Intensity Discharge, it’s bright like big lights in the stadium, I don’t know it either, but it’s too expensive, handheld size, not suitable for riding, so pass it too.
Lighting is the main function of the normal flashlight, but it may be not that perfect for outdoor. The flashlight sells on the taobao with price range of dozens RMB to thousands RMB, how to know this is a good flashlight? There are definitely professional outdoor flashlights since there are outdoor activities professionals, the price is proportional to flashlight’s performance. Tank007 is a real good brand with high cost performance.
Requirements of riding flashlight: don’t need long distance, 30m-50m is enough, but need high brightness, with irradiation area (good floodlight), long battery life (could use several 18650 batteries or other high capacity batteries), 1 mode is ok, automatic lifting pressure out of circuit like 63000 is good, but remember to take spare batteries. Some flashlights would change the mode automatically if riding on the rough road, so it’s better to choose shockproof riding flashlight. Most brand flashlights are against the rainstorm, which is important to outdoor riding friends. I pay much attention to equipments, keep buying the equipments after buying the bike, and finally got nearly complete equipments by thousands of money, wish could help the ones who intend to buy flashlight. It will make riding friends safer if equipped with flashlight and taillight when riding in the night.