Be Excellent To Each Other

For those keen cyclists out there.

What front lights do you have? I have been told Hope ones are great, but wow they are spendy.

Depends how bright you need it to be. If you're on a budget then you can't go far wrong with Cateye stuff:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/front-lights/?ea=4294789830

If you're on the road, you really don't need one of the super bright ones. I've a Niterider (bleurch) Ultrafazer 2.0 which does me, even on the mile or two I do without any streetlights, and a cateye on the back - both were under £20, can't find the former but there's an ultrafazer max which looks very similar.

Cars aren't very good at spotting me immediately, but then they're obviously driven by people used to life in the ultra-lit modern world, as on the 40 mile an hour road, which has no more than two miles without streetlights, lots of people put their lights on beam and leave them there. I can see the temptation to get massively bright lights so as to be seen before cars turn a corner or whatever, but given how badly adjusted they often are on bikes, and how easily they can become badly adjusted, I'd not bother; personally I just suck it up.

Slightly different through the woods on the ex railway line route, but I manage with the same lights there - and really do get blinded by other cyclists coming the other way.

Of those cat-eye ones, I've had the EL-135, and that was pretty good for being seen but didn't have much of a spread for actually seeing. I'd go for the HL-EL340 if that's around your price range - I had something similar that was great till I broke the mounting.

Sportpursuit have a few lights, too - you need to sign up, but this Lezyne is £34.99, http://www.sportpursuit.com/catalog/pro ... /id/386685 and looks like a decent step up.

Could you circulate this memo?

Round here there seem to be mainly two types of bike lights, ones that are about as dim as a lit cigarette or ones that are brighter than the Sun and flash on and off five times a second.

I will do what I can, for sure. It might take revolution and deaths, but I don't think you'll be dissenting.