FRONT LIGHTING - LEDs

At the front there are two requirements - to see they way ahead and spot the waymarkers on those dark lanes, and to be visible to oncoming road users. It’s my firm belief that no single light can do both these jobs well and at the same time (except perhaps the ultra-bright CatEye Stadium which is not really a practical proposition for PBP). The reason for this is that, in order to see the way ahead, the headlight needs to have a well- constructed beam which will be pointed slightly downwards at the road. Oncoming traffic sees only peripheral spill from this light, and that is simply not good enough.

Most integrated front lights you will find in the shops these days use C-cells or AA-cells. They are neater, more attractive designs, very much more reliable, and some of them give good light, but in general none of these are suitable for primary PBP lighting purposes. The problem is, very simply, run-time. C-cell lights last, at best, around 6 hours while the brightest AA lights last no more than 3. On very cold nights these times will drop even further. You have to assume it could take 5 hours of riding on dark roads to get from one PBP control to the next, so at best you would be buying new batteries at practically every night control. At worst you would be carrying spare batteries and changing them in the dark, on each night-time leg. Expensive, and not fun.

Several modern lights can be powered internally by 4 AAs or have a socket for external power. Using the external power option would overcome the runtime problem, and give good cheap reliable lighting, at the cost of some added complexity. A pair of basic Vista VL400s would be very neat, and could be rigged to run all night, sometimes one, sometimes both, off 2 D cells. The beam pattern leaves a bit to be desired. For more performance from a single light, a CatEye Micro could be run off a pack of 4 D cells, in fact CatEye sell a kit for this. A lot depends on handlebar space, distribution of brake cables and so on. I like VL400s very much but the underslung mounting tends to tangle up with my ‘concealed’ brake cables.

Since we’re now considering externally powered, cabled systems, then there are some possibilities for brighter, high-performance lighting. Not really an option on randonnées until recently, performance lighting has one or two big advantages if you can cope with the added complexity. Obviously brighter lights are safer - and PBP does include several long sweeping downhills which may be met at night, though road surfaces generally are very good - but most of all they are fun, and stimulating. They will help you fend off sleep and encourage much faster progress at night. A 5W bulb may not seem like much of an advance over a pair of Micros (2.4W each) but the tiny sealed units used in upmarket systems such as the Vista VL500 or the minimalist NightSun SunSport give a quality of light that I have never seen in any other cycle light. The 10W versions are good enough to allow daytime speeds on fast dark descents and have the added entertainment value of picking out all sorts of startled animal life in the hedgerows. Lights like these work best off rechargeables - OK for a one-nighter - but not at all off the Alkaline batteries that will be on sale at the PBP. So how can they be used?

Note that without the Willie Hunt regulator this is simply a non-starter. Run-time would be half and the quality of light would be dismal.

I’ve proved a 10W system as well. Simply use D cells instead of C cells for a similar run-time. Rather a heavy pack this, at over 1200gm, but no more expensive to run. With 10W lighting you would get a lot of attention from your fellow PBP riders - in fact you would find yourself on the front of any group you ride in, which could get a bit tiresome after a while. To be honest the 5W system is so good that the added light obtainable from the 10W is, in my view, not worth the extra weight and bulk over such a long haul.

With any of these systems using separate packs and cables, one thing you should carry is a spare cable - they are all too easily damaged, and not always easy to repair. And on the subject of spares, on PBP you are required to carry several spare bulbs. The sealed units as used in the VL500 or SunSport are very bulky and quite fragile at the pins end, not to mention expensive. They do however have 10x the life expectancy of a ‘normal’ halogen bulb, and even more when used with a Willie Hunt regulator, which is very kind to bulbs. So I would pack just one of these (protect it with a plastic film canister) and, to satisfy the scrutineers before the start, some of the smaller bulbs for your backup system.

FRONT LIGHTING - BACKUP

I have referred to backup and secondary lighting. These are two slightly different but overlapping concepts. Any serious lighting system requires a backup system. If you run performance lighting, then this primary system needs to have a secondary system, with lower power and longer runtime, to make the whole thing workable through a 10-hour night. Fortunately there is no logical reason why a single lower-powered light cannot perform backup and secondary functions equally well, so it’s not really necessary to have a third or tertiary light unless you are of the kitchen sink mentality.

But there are one or two options where you might find you get to this situation anyway. For example, regardless of your primary lighting - be it generator, D-cell lamp or performance system - a popular choice for backup/secondary lighting might be the CatEye Micro, which gives the best and brightest beam of any light in its class, and is a wonderfully small and lightweight package. Runtime is inevitably rather limited, and it would always be prudent to carry a spare set of batteries - 4xAAs - for this little light. In fact, the light is so small that, if you are going to carry spare batteries anyway, you really might as well keep them packed safely away in - a spare Micro. You now have spare bulb, spare light, spare batteries, all in one convenient package, and this constitutes a tertiary lighting system.

Elsewhere in this issue is an account of a Boston-Montreal-Boston (same distance as PBP) by Jim Halay. His lighting system, primary, secondary and tertiary, consisted simply of three CatEye Micros fitted with Lithium batteries. He says “the combination of light weight, simplicity and long lasting batteries made the combination almost perfect”. I wouldn’t argue with that though the beam thrown by a single Micro is very narrow. He also says he bought four complete sets of batteries for the ride - presumably he was using the bag-drop facilities. That’s 48 Lithium AA’s - at rock bottom UK prices that would be well over £80, go to the wrong suppliers and you could pay three times that. Plus £19 each for the lights. He only used half the batteries - looking closely at his story I estimate he rode about 14 night hours in total. With the Micro you must carry some spare bulbs. The light is very bright and efficient, but this means that the bulbs are highly stressed. Carry spares. At least they’re tiny.

Personally I think that runtime with the Micro really is a bit of a problem. You couldn’t get away with the all- Micro system above, using Alkalines. For backup/secondary purposes I would use the less highly-tuned Vista VL400 which will go for well over 4 hours with Alkalines, probably enough to get you from one control to the next. No reason why you shouldn’t soup this up with Lithiums, too. The CatEye 1500 would be another good choice - this seems to offer the best of both worlds with its two brightness settings, choose a bright 2.4W beam or a dimmer beam with longer runtime if you have to. Another BMB rider, Mike Delong, wrote “I rode with 2 mounted CatEye 1500 halogen headlights and since I was riding behind riders for all of my night riding, I just activated one, on low (1.6 watt) power. You can’t imagine how many unused AA batteries I have left over.”