Urban 500 Headlight by Light & Motion

Mkrs-
That’s why the light has 4 different settings, the one they show is the high, for situations as shown. The medium and/or low can be used when your in a different urban environment.

Please explain how a car’s headlights are not a danger compared to a ‘bright’ bicycle light. In my opinion, brighter is better because then people actually pay attention.

ideally, for urban areas you want a bit of a soft cutoff around the horizon, so as to not blind cars, pedestrians, other cyclists, etc.
just because the light is not pointed straight at someone doesnt mean they cant see the light, so their ability to see you is not hindered. if the oncoming vehicle is blinded by you, however, it could even cause them to something stupid.
busch and muller make a light intended for urban riding that provides a cutoff, and the lens can be changed for riding out in the open road.

Can’t really speak to the urban issues y’all are having with, “road legal” this, and “asymmetrical” that, but as a trail light the Urban 500 rocks. I was skeptical this Fall when the Allspeed boys were making their pitch, but it has been awesome. Easy on and easy off, really light weight, the side safety lights provide some ambient ground light when you find yourself hiking with your bike, can be used as an insanely bright flash light when the power is out, and perhaps most importantly is bright enough to let you go really fast in the woods at night on ice and snow. Oh yeah, it’s also pretty affordable at $150. You could get two for the cost of other lights, use the included helmet mount with one, and run a dual light system. Murder…..

I’m always amazed to hear people crying about the lights being too bright and blinding cars. A motorcycle headlamp has to have a minimum rating of 1000 or 1100 lumens. Simply put, you don’t need to aim the light in drivers eyes….because it is so bright you can focus the beam down just like a motorcycle – you want to see the path in front of you, not 100 yds ahead if you were to aim towards drivers eyes. It’s not the light’s fault for being bright.

Light and Motion is one of the few bike lighting companies that design their own reflection systems to maximize beam performance – notice in the beam image how consistent the light is and that there are no halos, or dark spots!! The others use off the shelf chinese import solutions. Bush&Miller, Phillips, Roxim…really?? Those are cheap alkaline powered batteries that couldn’t blind drivers if they tried. And because they don’t have regulated power, within 10 minutes you’ll lose about 20% of the light output, and within 30 minutes you’ll have lost about 35-40%.

Size, weight, and features (battery indicator, custom reflectors, side lighting, Micro-USB rechargeable) for your money, you can’t get a better deal.

I’ve actually had two strangers in two different cars thank me for having a bright light on my bike. They appreciated being able to see me at a much greater distance than they normally saw with other cyclists. I appreciate it even more than them as it allows me to see hazards at a much greater distance. If you’ve ever experienced a javelina suddenly walking into your path, you know where I’m coming from. Damned javelinas.

@Steve

I believe you’ll be equally amazed to learn that motorcycle light are also designed so that they direct most of their light output towards the road, not directly in front of the bike. Blinding a driver coming at you is almost just as dangerous as having no lights because they can’t see you anyway so you’re in great danger.

And I believe you have never used a Philips LBL – it has a great LED driver which does not lose light output even at 10% of battery left. So sorry mate, but you have no idea of what you are talking about.