Interbike 2012: Lupine Betty Bike Light Hits 3600 Lumens, Leaves Spots in Our Eyes & Wallets

I wish BikeRumor offered more thoughtful reviews – referring to the lumens as CLAIMED and not assuming those are the actual results. Same goes for the crappy chinese made Lumintrek advertisement on the sidebar – 1600 lumens for 169.95…riiiiight.. most consumers don’t realize how much they are getting ripped off and all this cut/paste media coverage feeds it.

you say spots in wallets but dont mention pricing?

@Greg Kopecky J… actually Lupine systems are consistently dead accurate in lumen ratings… its one of the reasons their lights are so damned expensive, and really, 3600 lumens from 7 LEDs is ridiculously easy to achieve. The DIY crowd on mtbr’s light forum routinely are building much stronger stuff, including some of them own companies which produce these lights commercially… but what they make for themselves… if they focuses them tighter you’d violate some FAA regulations if you aimed them at flying aircraft at night.

Without reading up which LED specifically they’re using, the Cree XM-L T-6 bin is capable of in excess of 1000 lumens EACH (at 85C operating temperature) when driven at 3 amps. 7 of those and that’s over 7k lumens. Drive them half way and well… lower temperatures inside the housing and 3600 lumens. The Cree XPG is just under 500 lumens at 1.5 amps, and the new XPG2 is 20% higher at the same amperage. There’s also now an even newer XML-U2 that is already appearing in fancy high-powered flashlights that’s about 10% better than the XML-T6 for the same power.

Greg J. – 09/27/12 – 10:03pm
I wish BikeRumor offered more thoughtful reviews – referring to the lumens as CLAIMED and not assuming those are the actual results. Same goes for the crappy chinese made Lumintrek advertisement on the sidebar – 1600 lumens for 169.95…riiiiight.. most consumers don’t realize how much they are getting ripped off and all this cut/paste media coverage feeds it.
JimmyZ – 09/27/12 – 10:18pm
I would like to see the shape the light beam takes. I get dreams of tunnel vision after I ride at night with my magicshine. There has to be a better way to deal with this besides mounting lights on each side of my handlebar.

Greg, BR doesnt do that many reviews. this article was for product introductions. no where does BR state they have used these lights for review! Both of you guys need to do you own research and searching. if you had you would find out Lupine systems are almost always accurately represented spec wise.

Also, I’m very glad to see my hero DeeEight posting at BikeRumor. If there’s one Internet Personality (TM) who knows how to appear expert by using Google to research facts and regurgitate them as if he were the designer of every bike part ever made, it’s DeeEight. Truly, a hero for the ages!

Interesting stuff. Given that Lupine’s a German company, how do they not run afoul of StVZO light regulations with these monsters? I thought there were strict limits on brightness for urban bike lights?

These lights are seriously legit, I have the 3600lm Betty R9 on the handlebars, the 900lm Piko 3 on my helmet and a Piko mini max in my backpack for emergencies. You can’t do any better than these lights, period

@Bart: Betty R $1100-1200 depending on battery
Piko 3 – $365
Piko mini max $400