Lights lights lights!

But first a daily recap:
Commuting, 12 miles on the Fuel at lunch and a solid hour on the trainer. Feeling good and ready for my hard Friday/Saturday combo.

Okay onto the main event!

I want to compete in some 24 hour solo races as well as the midnight starting Kokopelli Trail race in 2007. What I have is a Niterider 6 Volt 15 Watt light converted to a 12V 20W light. However the old battery is dead leaving me with no working light right now. What I need is a handlebar and helmet light combination that will give me at least 6 hours of light with options of up to 12 hours by carrying an extra battery pack. It needs to be bright enough part of the time to ride single track at speed but can be cut back to a more reasonable level to conserve power on climbing and fireroad sections. So after drooling over the far too expensive $500 Niterider Moab HID with 8-12hour run times, I came upon this from MTBR. Now I cannot make up my mind for anything.

Led Light Review

First I thought I would pick up a CygoLite HiFlux 100 for $56 from Blue Sky Cycling. It's a single 3W emitter that runs off C batteries for 25 hours (claimed). That's pretty darn good for $56 and according to one guy who did 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo with 2 of them they are adaquete.

Then I stumbled upon this DIY article for LED lights. I've done the DIY thing when I modified my old Niterider and that worked great but the LEDs take a little more care. Now i'm reading up on them like crazy, trying to decide if I can build a couple LED lights including a 3x3W cluster and 5W helmet light that are bright enough to beat the CygoLite HiFlux 100 pair and still last up to 12 hours with Li-ion packs from BatterySpace. That would be light, bright AND cost effective.