MagicShine 900

There's nothing like pre-dawn rides on OK Freewheel! Not only do you get to beat the heat and enjoy incredible sunrises, you can also see a lot of wildlife you miss in the daytime. And it's actually quite safe out in the country on backroads. You can see approaching headlights from miles away. But you need to light up the road as well as be seen. That's why I use a MagicShine 900 headlight. 900 lumens - VERY bright, and fairly inexpensive at about $85. Comes with a waterproof battery and charger. Bought mine on eBay. Only slight downfall is battery life. At the full brightness setting, you'll get about 2 hours on the battery, but it takes a lot of juice to pump out that much illumination! The lower setting gets you about another hour or 2, then the fast strobe a little longer, and longest of all is the SOS mode - it's lasted as long as 5 hours on this slow flash mode. The light is VERY visible in full daylight.

A recent 50-mile tour in the rain convinced me the MagicShine was not quite enough. After the battery was expended, I was left with no lights on the front of my trike. So now I have 2 130 lumen Cree P4 zooming flashlights for backup. If I REALLY need to burn a hole thru the darkness, running all 3 lights will give me 1160 lumens. That should be enough.