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On 4/7/2019 5:07 PM, Andre Jute wrote:
snip In my opinion, the Cyo is the first barely* adequate bicycle lamp by any manufacturer with universal distribution. Leaving aside the matter of the top cutoff, the Cyo is still inferior the MR11 and MR16 lamps I built to Scharfie's plans (a public service to cyclists) lo! these many years ago. snip Remember that the Cyo was designed to be StVZO legal, it wasn't designed to be the most effective in terms of illumination and safety. "Many years ago" if you wanted decent lighting you were stuck with building your own bicycle lights, generally with MR11 or MR16 lamps, or buying some low-volume, very expensive, lights, often HID. That all changed when there were LEDs with sufficient output to be usable as bicycle lights, and with Chinese manufacturers getting their act together in terms of quality of design and manufacturing. The Cyo lacks a modulated mode, presumably because in many countries such a mode would not be legal. |
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On 4/8/2019 4:01 AM, sms wrote:
On 4/7/2019 5:07 PM, Andre Jute wrote: snip In my opinion, the Cyo is the first barely* adequate bicycle lamp by any manufacturer with universal distribution. Leaving aside the matter of the top cutoff, the Cyo is still inferior the MR11 and MR16 lamps I built to Scharfie's plans (a public service to cyclists) lo! these many years ago. snip Remember that the Cyo was designed to be StVZO legal, it wasn't designed to be the most effective in terms of illumination and safety. The "Danger! Danger!" Safety Inflation contingent defines "most effective in terms of illumination and safety" to be something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7RU...ature=youtu.be Their standard is simple: As long as something brighter exists, nothing else is safe enough. "sms" AKA Scharf seems to fantasize that the German government enacted design requirements in an effort to kill cyclists. But instead, the StVZO requirements are intended to give cyclists adequate visibility and road illumination without blinding others. Of course, those with either "Danger! Danger!" paranoia or MFFY attitudes don't care about that. Also, notice the very obvious "hot spot" directly in front of that cyclist at about 0.33 in that video. That's what you get with headlights with kindergarten optics, which means pretty much anything not qualifying for StVZO. The hot spot tends to blind the cyclist using the light. Your eyes adjust for the intense brightness of that spot, thus are stopped down too far to see into the relatively darker areas beyond. Properly designed road vehicle optics are very similar for bicycles, cars, trucks or motorcycles. The portion of the beam pointing downward should be dimmer since it illuminates the road very close to the operator and has less distance to travel. Portions of the beam pointed further forward should gradually increase in brightness, and the portion pointing furthest down the road should be brightest. Above that should be a cutoff, sending enough light to be seen by, but not so much as to glare in others' eyes. The result of this is very uniform road illumination, easiest on the eyes and best for showing road obstacles. And ANY headlight beam that adequately illuminates the road is EASILY visible to other road users. "I gotta blind people to be seen" is just stupid. The Cyo lacks a modulated mode, presumably because in many countries such a mode would not be legal. The main root cause for Cyo lacking a modulated mode is that only one nutty California politician thinks it needs one. -- - Frank Krygowski |
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On Monday, April 8, 2019 at 7:48:24 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 4/8/2019 4:01 AM, sms wrote: On 4/7/2019 5:07 PM, Andre Jute wrote: snip In my opinion, the Cyo is the first barely* adequate bicycle lamp by any manufacturer with universal distribution. Leaving aside the matter of the top cutoff, the Cyo is still inferior the MR11 and MR16 lamps I built to Scharfie's plans (a public service to cyclists) lo! these many years ago. snip Remember that the Cyo was designed to be StVZO legal, it wasn't designed to be the most effective in terms of illumination and safety. The "Danger! Danger!" Safety Inflation contingent defines "most effective in terms of illumination and safety" to be something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7RU...ature=youtu.be Their standard is simple: As long as something brighter exists, nothing else is safe enough. "sms" AKA Scharf seems to fantasize that the German government enacted design requirements in an effort to kill cyclists. But instead, the StVZO requirements are intended to give cyclists adequate visibility and road illumination without blinding others. Of course, those with either "Danger! Danger!" paranoia or MFFY attitudes don't care about that. Also, notice the very obvious "hot spot" directly in front of that cyclist at about 0.33 in that video. That's what you get with headlights with kindergarten optics, which means pretty much anything not qualifying for StVZO. The hot spot tends to blind the cyclist using the light. Your eyes adjust for the intense brightness of that spot, thus are stopped down too far to see into the relatively darker areas beyond. Properly designed road vehicle optics are very similar for bicycles, cars, trucks or motorcycles. The portion of the beam pointing downward should be dimmer since it illuminates the road very close to the operator and has less distance to travel. Portions of the beam pointed further forward should gradually increase in brightness, and the portion pointing furthest down the road should be brightest. Above that should be a cutoff, sending enough light to be seen by, but not so much as to glare in others' eyes. The result of this is very uniform road illumination, easiest on the eyes and best for showing road obstacles. And ANY headlight beam that adequately illuminates the road is EASILY visible to other road users. "I gotta blind people to be seen" is just stupid. The Cyo lacks a modulated mode, presumably because in many countries such a mode would not be legal. The main root cause for Cyo lacking a modulated mode is that only one nutty California politician thinks it needs one. It's not nutty at all. Cars have high beams which, of course, do not have cut-off. Hard beam cut off is a bad thing in undulating terrain with no ambient light sources, and reaching down to tilt up your StVZO light and tilt it down doesn't make a lot of sense. There are a lot of places I would like a high beam and a lot of places where high beams should be outlawed, just like for motorists on the road. Moreover, a low lumen flasher is also a good idea for differentiating bicycles from other light sources, particularly in an urban environment with lots of light sources. Flashers certainly aren't for illumination, although some people seem to think so. I use my little Nashbar flasher for overcast and rain, like this morning. -- Jay Beattie. |
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On 4/8/2019 11:55 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, April 8, 2019 at 7:48:24 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/8/2019 4:01 AM, sms wrote: On 4/7/2019 5:07 PM, Andre Jute wrote: snip In my opinion, the Cyo is the first barely* adequate bicycle lamp by any manufacturer with universal distribution. Leaving aside the matter of the top cutoff, the Cyo is still inferior the MR11 and MR16 lamps I built to Scharfie's plans (a public service to cyclists) lo! these many years ago. snip Remember that the Cyo was designed to be StVZO legal, it wasn't designed to be the most effective in terms of illumination and safety. The "Danger! Danger!" Safety Inflation contingent defines "most effective in terms of illumination and safety" to be something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7RU...ature=youtu.be Their standard is simple: As long as something brighter exists, nothing else is safe enough. "sms" AKA Scharf seems to fantasize that the German government enacted design requirements in an effort to kill cyclists. But instead, the StVZO requirements are intended to give cyclists adequate visibility and road illumination without blinding others. Of course, those with either "Danger! Danger!" paranoia or MFFY attitudes don't care about that. Also, notice the very obvious "hot spot" directly in front of that cyclist at about 0.33 in that video. That's what you get with headlights with kindergarten optics, which means pretty much anything not qualifying for StVZO. The hot spot tends to blind the cyclist using the light. Your eyes adjust for the intense brightness of that spot, thus are stopped down too far to see into the relatively darker areas beyond. Properly designed road vehicle optics are very similar for bicycles, cars, trucks or motorcycles. The portion of the beam pointing downward should be dimmer since it illuminates the road very close to the operator and has less distance to travel. Portions of the beam pointed further forward should gradually increase in brightness, and the portion pointing furthest down the road should be brightest. Above that should be a cutoff, sending enough light to be seen by, but not so much as to glare in others' eyes. The result of this is very uniform road illumination, easiest on the eyes and best for showing road obstacles. And ANY headlight beam that adequately illuminates the road is EASILY visible to other road users. "I gotta blind people to be seen" is just stupid. The Cyo lacks a modulated mode, presumably because in many countries such a mode would not be legal. The main root cause for Cyo lacking a modulated mode is that only one nutty California politician thinks it needs one. It's not nutty at all. Cars have high beams which, of course, do not have cut-off. Hard beam cut off is a bad thing in undulating terrain with no ambient light sources, and reaching down to tilt up your StVZO light and tilt it down doesn't make a lot of sense. There are a lot of places I would like a high beam and a lot of places where high beams should be outlawed, just like for motorists on the road. Moreover, a low lumen flasher is also a good idea for differentiating bicycles from other light sources, particularly in an urban environment with lots of light sources. Flashers certainly aren't for illumination, although some people seem to think so. I use my little Nashbar flasher for overcast and rain, like this morning. Parse the sentence again, please. The adjective "nutty" applied to one California politician. I stand by that evaluation. Regarding the rest: I don't doubt that there are a few - very few - situations where a road bicyclist could really use a beam with no cutoff. But in my experience, those are few enough that I deal with them by tilting the light manually. It's rare and no big deal. As LEDs get even better, and _if_ people wake up to the problems that you've noted with blinding lights, perhaps bike lights will someday have low beams and high beams. But personally, I think that would be exactly as useful as bike turn signals with auto-cancellation. As for differentiating between a bicycle and some other road vehicle: With my headlight, I don't see any particular value. Why would a night cyclist want to signal to oncoming traffic that he's "just" a bicycle? So they would be more likely to cut across your path? As I've said, I have nighttime motorists ahead of me waiting overly long times for me to pass. I have no problem with that behavior. And actually, I think by far the strongest visual characteristic of most nighttime cyclists is the image of pedal reflectors - not that it matters much. IME if a bicyclist rides prominently in the lane, he is plenty visible, with the only daytime exceptions being dense fog or absolutely pouring rain. If a cyclist uses legal lights at night, he is plenty visible. Front flashers, especially in daytime, are just part of the leading edge of bicycling safety inflation. Only "hi-viz" vests are more extreme. -- - Frank Krygowski |
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sms wrote:
On 4/7/2019 5:07 PM, Andre Jute wrote: snip In my opinion, the Cyo is the first barely* adequate bicycle lamp by any manufacturer with universal distribution. Leaving aside the matter of the top cutoff, the Cyo is still inferior the MR11 and MR16 lamps I built to Scharfie's plans (a public service to cyclists) lo! these many years ago. snip Remember that the Cyo was designed to be StVZO legal, it wasn't designed to be the most effective in terms of illumination and safety. "Many years ago" if you wanted decent lighting you were stuck with building your own bicycle lights, generally with MR11 or MR16 lamps, or buying some low-volume, very expensive, lights, often HID. That all changed when there were LEDs with sufficient output to be usable as bicycle lights, and with Chinese manufacturers getting their act together in terms of quality of design and manufacturing. The Cyo lacks a modulated mode, presumably because in many countries such a mode would not be legal. Apparently not, https://exposurelights.com/products/bike/stvzo-lights though apparently the full beam is for off road only. Though I have a Strada from the same lot, which though not, StVZO doing the walking around the bike in the night, at low/dip is friendly, and is good enough to be seen, and also as it’s not too dark see by. Full chat is not friendly but very good to see by, only reaches its limit off road. Roger Merriman |
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On Monday, April 8, 2019 at 11:04:44 AM UTC-7, Roger Merriman wrote:
sms wrote: On 4/7/2019 5:07 PM, Andre Jute wrote: snip In my opinion, the Cyo is the first barely* adequate bicycle lamp by any manufacturer with universal distribution. Leaving aside the matter of the top cutoff, the Cyo is still inferior the MR11 and MR16 lamps I built to Scharfie's plans (a public service to cyclists) lo! these many years ago. snip Remember that the Cyo was designed to be StVZO legal, it wasn't designed to be the most effective in terms of illumination and safety. "Many years ago" if you wanted decent lighting you were stuck with building your own bicycle lights, generally with MR11 or MR16 lamps, or buying some low-volume, very expensive, lights, often HID. That all changed when there were LEDs with sufficient output to be usable as bicycle lights, and with Chinese manufacturers getting their act together in terms of quality of design and manufacturing. The Cyo lacks a modulated mode, presumably because in many countries such a mode would not be legal. Apparently not, https://exposurelights.com/products/bike/stvzo-lights though apparently the full beam is for off road only. Though I have a Strada from the same lot, which though not, StVZO doing the walking around the bike in the night, at low/dip is friendly, and is good enough to be seen, and also as it’s not too dark see by. Full chat is not friendly but very good to see by, only reaches its limit off road. Roger Merriman Ay Chihuahua! 300 GBP! https://exposurelights.com/products/...ghts/strada-sb Their dyno light is not cheap either, but it does have a nice stand light. No high/low/flasher, etc. Seems like pretty straightforward dyno-tech. -- Jay Beattie. |
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On 9/4/19 1:55 am, jbeattie wrote:
It's not nutty at all. Cars have high beams which, of course, do not have cut-off. Hard beam cut off is a bad thing in undulating terrain with no ambient light sources, and reaching down to tilt up your StVZO light and tilt it down doesn't make a lot of sense. There are a lot of places I would like a high beam and a lot of places where high beams should be outlawed, just like for motorists on the road. Yes, there are times a high beam light would be handy, though not perhaps essential. I can drive my car at night on unlit roads without using high beam lights. I just drive slower. Sometimes I have to dip my high beam lights on approach to corners and such where there are highly reflective signs. I find the reflected light dazzles me. -- JS |
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On Mon, 8 Apr 2019 10:48:20 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote: On 4/8/2019 4:01 AM, sms wrote: On 4/7/2019 5:07 PM, Andre Jute wrote: snip In my opinion, the Cyo is the first barely* adequate bicycle lamp by any manufacturer with universal distribution. Leaving aside the matter of the top cutoff, the Cyo is still inferior the MR11 and MR16 lamps I built to Scharfie's plans (a public service to cyclists) lo! these many years ago. snip Remember that the Cyo was designed to be StVZO legal, it wasn't designed to be the most effective in terms of illumination and safety. The "Danger! Danger!" Safety Inflation contingent defines "most effective in terms of illumination and safety" to be something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7RU...ature=youtu.be Their standard is simple: As long as something brighter exists, nothing else is safe enough. "sms" AKA Scharf seems to fantasize that the German government enacted design requirements in an effort to kill cyclists. But instead, the StVZO requirements are intended to give cyclists adequate visibility and road illumination without blinding others. Of course, those with either "Danger! Danger!" paranoia or MFFY attitudes don't care about that. Also, notice the very obvious "hot spot" directly in front of that cyclist at about 0.33 in that video. That's what you get with headlights with kindergarten optics, which means pretty much anything not qualifying for StVZO. The hot spot tends to blind the cyclist using the light. Your eyes adjust for the intense brightness of that spot, thus are stopped down too far to see into the relatively darker areas beyond. Properly designed road vehicle optics are very similar for bicycles, cars, trucks or motorcycles. The portion of the beam pointing downward should be dimmer since it illuminates the road very close to the operator and has less distance to travel. Portions of the beam pointed further forward should gradually increase in brightness, and the portion pointing furthest down the road should be brightest. Above that should be a cutoff, sending enough light to be seen by, but not so much as to glare in others' eyes. The result of this is very uniform road illumination, easiest on the eyes and best for showing road obstacles. And ANY headlight beam that adequately illuminates the road is EASILY visible to other road users. "I gotta blind people to be seen" is just stupid. The Cyo lacks a modulated mode, presumably because in many countries such a mode would not be legal. The main root cause for Cyo lacking a modulated mode is that only one nutty California politician thinks it needs one. Given that high/low beam lights have been installed on Autos since 1915 - some hundred plus years ago - the design can no longer be considered "rocket science". It seems illogical, at best, to believe that they couldn't be installed on bicycles and one can only assume that the failure to do so and the resultant complaints of "blinding lights" on bicycles is simply a matter of sloth on the part of light makers or ignorance on the part of politicians for not demanding such minimal design specifications for legal bicycle lighting. -- cheers, John B. |
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On Mon, 8 Apr 2019 13:28:22 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote: On 4/8/2019 11:55 AM, jbeattie wrote: On Monday, April 8, 2019 at 7:48:24 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 4/8/2019 4:01 AM, sms wrote: On 4/7/2019 5:07 PM, Andre Jute wrote: snip In my opinion, the Cyo is the first barely* adequate bicycle lamp by any manufacturer with universal distribution. Leaving aside the matter of the top cutoff, the Cyo is still inferior the MR11 and MR16 lamps I built to Scharfie's plans (a public service to cyclists) lo! these many years ago. snip Remember that the Cyo was designed to be StVZO legal, it wasn't designed to be the most effective in terms of illumination and safety. The "Danger! Danger!" Safety Inflation contingent defines "most effective in terms of illumination and safety" to be something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7RU...ature=youtu.be Their standard is simple: As long as something brighter exists, nothing else is safe enough. "sms" AKA Scharf seems to fantasize that the German government enacted design requirements in an effort to kill cyclists. But instead, the StVZO requirements are intended to give cyclists adequate visibility and road illumination without blinding others. Of course, those with either "Danger! Danger!" paranoia or MFFY attitudes don't care about that. Also, notice the very obvious "hot spot" directly in front of that cyclist at about 0.33 in that video. That's what you get with headlights with kindergarten optics, which means pretty much anything not qualifying for StVZO. The hot spot tends to blind the cyclist using the light. Your eyes adjust for the intense brightness of that spot, thus are stopped down too far to see into the relatively darker areas beyond. Properly designed road vehicle optics are very similar for bicycles, cars, trucks or motorcycles. The portion of the beam pointing downward should be dimmer since it illuminates the road very close to the operator and has less distance to travel. Portions of the beam pointed further forward should gradually increase in brightness, and the portion pointing furthest down the road should be brightest. Above that should be a cutoff, sending enough light to be seen by, but not so much as to glare in others' eyes. The result of this is very uniform road illumination, easiest on the eyes and best for showing road obstacles. And ANY headlight beam that adequately illuminates the road is EASILY visible to other road users. "I gotta blind people to be seen" is just stupid. The Cyo lacks a modulated mode, presumably because in many countries such a mode would not be legal. The main root cause for Cyo lacking a modulated mode is that only one nutty California politician thinks it needs one. It's not nutty at all. Cars have high beams which, of course, do not have cut-off. Hard beam cut off is a bad thing in undulating terrain with no ambient light sources, and reaching down to tilt up your StVZO light and tilt it down doesn't make a lot of sense. There are a lot of places I would like a high beam and a lot of places where high beams should be outlawed, just like for motorists on the road. Moreover, a low lumen flasher is also a good idea for differentiating bicycles from other light sources, particularly in an urban environment with lots of light sources. Flashers certainly aren't for illumination, although some people seem to think so. I use my little Nashbar flasher for overcast and rain, like this morning. Parse the sentence again, please. The adjective "nutty" applied to one California politician. I stand by that evaluation. Regarding the rest: I don't doubt that there are a few - very few - situations where a road bicyclist could really use a beam with no cutoff. But in my experience, those are few enough that I deal with them by tilting the light manually. It's rare and no big deal. As LEDs get even better, and _if_ people wake up to the problems that you've noted with blinding lights, perhaps bike lights will someday have low beams and high beams. But personally, I think that would be exactly as useful as bike turn signals with auto-cancellation. As for differentiating between a bicycle and some other road vehicle: With my headlight, I don't see any particular value. Why would a night cyclist want to signal to oncoming traffic that he's "just" a bicycle? So they would be more likely to cut across your path? As I've said, I have nighttime motorists ahead of me waiting overly long times for me to pass. I have no problem with that behavior. And actually, I think by far the strongest visual characteristic of most nighttime cyclists is the image of pedal reflectors - not that it matters much. IME if a bicyclist rides prominently in the lane, he is plenty visible, with the only daytime exceptions being dense fog or absolutely pouring rain. If a cyclist uses legal lights at night, he is plenty visible. Front flashers, especially in daytime, are just part of the leading edge of bicycling safety inflation. Only "hi-viz" vests are more extreme. Why in the world shouldn't bicycle lights have a high and low beam? After all mankind has quite obviously known to engineer such a complex devise for a hundred years or more and my 1948 Royal Enfield 350cc motorcycle certainly had high-low beam lights. Why not bicycles? I suppose it is because bicycles are intended to be light in weight and simple in operation but after all, a high-low beam light is only as complex as a simple two position thumb operated switch. Certainly lighter and not as complex as hydraulic brakes. -- cheers, John B. |
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jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, April 8, 2019 at 11:04:44 AM UTC-7, Roger Merriman wrote: sms wrote: On 4/7/2019 5:07 PM, Andre Jute wrote: snip In my opinion, the Cyo is the first barely* adequate bicycle lamp by any manufacturer with universal distribution. Leaving aside the matter of the top cutoff, the Cyo is still inferior the MR11 and MR16 lamps I built to Scharfie's plans (a public service to cyclists) lo! these many years ago. snip Remember that the Cyo was designed to be StVZO legal, it wasn't designed to be the most effective in terms of illumination and safety. "Many years ago" if you wanted decent lighting you were stuck with building your own bicycle lights, generally with MR11 or MR16 lamps, or buying some low-volume, very expensive, lights, often HID. That all changed when there were LEDs with sufficient output to be usable as bicycle lights, and with Chinese manufacturers getting their act together in terms of quality of design and manufacturing. The Cyo lacks a modulated mode, presumably because in many countries such a mode would not be legal. Apparently not, https://exposurelights.com/products/bike/stvzo-lights though apparently the full beam is for off road only. Though I have a Strada from the same lot, which though not, StVZO doing the walking around the bike in the night, at low/dip is friendly, and is good enough to be seen, and also as it’s not too dark see by. Full chat is not friendly but very good to see by, only reaches its limit off road. Roger Merriman Ay Chihuahua! 300 GBP! https://exposurelights.com/products/...ghts/strada-sb Their dyno light is not cheap either, but it does have a nice stand light. No high/low/flasher, etc. Seems like pretty straightforward dyno-tech. -- Jay Beattie. I have the baby, one (Strada) which is about a £100 give or take, which like the big brother above, runs in has high/medium/low/flash modes, you can also program modes should you wish which I don’t! It comes with a remote so you can easily flick between modes, high to low if you spot another bike etc, or boost it. The Dynamo doesn’t seem to get terribly good reviews, expensive way of getting your lumens its 800, and not StVZO so neither traditional dynamo light nor going to lure folks away from big battery powered MTB lights. But someone must be buying them! Roger Merriman |
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