The bulb and its coating have at its base a small pedestal that terminates in a 1/4 in diameter cylindar with 1/4 in diameter brass ends at each side. This simple snaps into the helmet holder piece, a lightweight bit of similar rubbery plastic that has 1/4 in diameter contacts. The bulb head pivots on its 1/4 in diameter contacts.

Of all systems I've played with, the Night Sun allows for the fastest bulb replacement, for one can snap out one head and snap in another head literally in a matter of seconds. No tools... not even a screwdriver or a coin... are required. Of course, one does have to have the foresight to have ordered and have on hand a spare head FROM NIGHT SUN.

This feature, combined with the excellent efficiency of this lamp when run off a 6 volt battery, can be desireable in racing and ultra situations.

What I did was try out, first on my bench, then at night outside, side by side the Night Sun "Sunsport" with NiteRider's 10 watt "Cyclops" headlamp.

The two units are awfully similar, in that they are both 6 volt 10 degree spot MR11 bulb-based single beam systems.

To focus the comparison on the bulbs, I used a 6 volt 5 amp hour (5 D cell) NiCd battery pack with the NiteRider. Thus, both headlamps were in this test powered by 6 volt NiCd batteries.

Bench tests of the two systems side by side showed the following:

                     volts     amps     watts
                     -----     ----     -----
NiteRider 10 watt:    6.2       1.65     10.2
Night Sun  6 watt:    6.5        .87      5.6

To my surprise, when I took the units outside, the light put out by the two was VERY similar. I could not easily tell which was brighter. But the light from the Night Sun "Sun Sport" was significantly more white, where the 10 watt NiteRider "Cyclops" was slightly visibly more yellow in color.

Now, it's possible I had one of the older bulbs in the NiteRider unit, I must confess. Still, I was very impressed by the amount of light and the brightness of light the Sun Sport put out, as compared to that from the nearly double power NiteRider.

Pending any correction from NiteRider (such as learning they now have a new 10 watt 6 volt bulb) it would seem that Night Sun's Sun Sport is the clear winner here.

Both beams had a VERY similar pattern and dispersion, no doubt due to their using very similar if not identical MR11 reflectors: They were tight, very even 10 degree spot beams, with a modest but significant amount of light spilled outside of the main 10 degree spot. This sort of beam is excellent for a mountain bike helmet lamp AND for a road bike handlebar headlight.

Of course, as Tobin George of NightSun explained, the reason for his unit having both whiter light and more efficient operation is that he uses the same trick with his 6 volt Sun Sport that NiteRider uses with their "12 volt" systems: He overvolts the bulb. He starts with a 4.8 volt bulb, and runs it at higher voltage, getting a whiter light and more efficiency. At the expense of a decreased bulb life, of course. This is the same sort of trade off his competitor NiteRider uses when they run 12 volt MR11 bulbs off their 13.2 volt battery.

What's neat here is that we have a system that uses this trick in the low to medium power, 6 volt category.

I'd again urge Tobin to make this system available as an entry level handlebar mount headlight, in addition to its current marketing as a helment lamp. It DOES make an excellent helmet lamp for mountain bike riding, but it ALSO would be a great medium power handlebar headlamp for road bike riding. Both applications are nicely met by a 10 degree MR11 spot lamp in the 6 to 10 watt range.

This test emphasizes what we've been discussion on BikeCurrent quite a bit over the last few months: How important it is to very carefully choose the precise trade-off between bulb life and bulb efficiency for your application. The one thing missing from this evaluation, which perhaps Tobin George can supply here, is some information on the manufacturers' rated bulb life for his bulb when run at the intended voltage, and any information he has on the actual bulb life when overvoltage as is done in the Night Sun system. Typically these MR11 bulbs are given a 3000 to 4000 hour life rating, and it's possible that overvolted as much as this one is, its life is decreased to around 300 to 400 hours. But this is just a rough guess based on my experience with similar but not identical bulbs, and on a rough table of bulb life vs degree of overvolting.

But the bottom line here is that for the typical end user, the Night Sun "Sun Sport" offers really excellent performance and efficiency, at a very reasonable price as complete systems of this quality go. It appears to beat its obvious competition, the NiteRider Trail Rat, in this respect, in being both brighter and more efficient and using a higher quality battery technology.

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