Safety is everything when you're in the dark, and require any light to get out of danger.
Headlights in comparison:
- Blackburn X3.
- Generic 5 LEDs torches
- Luxeon 2 LEDs custom mount flashlights
Adaptive Design:
The light can be mounted on virtually all bike handle bars. I have a custom hybrid road bike, my wife is a Sidewinder FX mountain, my 8 year old son's is BMX, and my little 1 year old is a Schwinn Mark III trailer. The quick release handle bar mount accommodate a handle bar tube as small as 1/4 inch, up to 1.75 inches. This is practically the sizes for 99% of the bikes' handle bar tubes and trailers' frames. The cool thing is, the mount also has an adjustable side-to-side angle for your light. It's perfect when you need a quick adjustment on your light beam from left, to right, and back to center, based on your travel path. If you need a quick use of the light as a flash light, the mount allows you to quickly remove the light by squeezing in the V-clip, and slide forward for a fast dismount.
Visibility:
- Morning hours: At dawn, with just a crack of sunlight in the horizon, your light only gives you enough lumen to see about 5 feet away. But, to motorists, your light is bright enough to be seen at 1/2 mile away.
- Night hours: When the sun starts to sink into the horizon, your visibility increases significantly. If there's still some light before dusk, you still able to see about 7 feet in front of you, and you can be spotted at 1/2 miles away. When there's no light left, and all you have are street lights, you can see about 10 feet in front of you, quite clearly, within a 3 feet spot light circle. The halo around your spot light (4 feet in each direction) gives you enough light to see obstructions, but not enough to clearly identify the obstruction, such as a log, or a shredded tire piece. You can bet you can be seen by motorists up to 1mile away. In total darkness, you can see 15 feet in front of you within the 3 feet spot light circle, and the halo around the spot light area can be seen quite clearly to identify everything, down to a 1 inch bolt. You're now can be seen as far as 1.5 miles away at level ground, and as bright as a motorcylists headlight. When the vehicle is close by, the LEDs can be quite blinding. If you mount the light onto your head with a helmet mount, you bet you can temporarily blind the drivers, like I have. There are passengers screaming out indicating that the LEDs are way too bright, and drivers honking horns to tell us to crank the brightness down. Sorry, can't do that. Our safety goes above the irritation the drivers may have.
In comparison with the Blackburn X3 (2.3 watts and uses tons of power), this 1watt (powered by 4 AA-batteries) gives enough light to get you through the dark nights, or a fraction of the price. Combine with the X3, or another Voyager 4, you can light up the roads regardless of how much street lights are on, and how bright they are. Rather than spending hundreds on the expensive lights, the Voyager 4 can act as your first 10 feet supporting light on your handle bar, and your X3 helmet mounted light can act as your mid and long range spot light. In combination, these two lights illuminate my paths on my long commutes.
If you're going into dark trails or riding downhill faster than 15 mph, using only this light, you will outrun the light. This only gives you a good visibility of 15 feet ahead of you if you travel at 10 to 15 mph. You need to use this in combination with a good spot light for a far forward visibility. X3 is a good combo, since it only cost $60, rather than the $150+ for the X6 system, or the more expensive LEDs and Halogen/HID systems. This will give you the effective 20+ feet of illuminated path for less than $100, and you can max your speed out at 40 mph like I do with my road bike down the hills.
Side marker LEDs:
There are two yellow blinking LEDs that acts as side markers. These proves to be useless on all levels. They're not bright enough as effective visible markers, and they're draining the batteries for nothing.
Power usages:
There are three settings and three level of power usages:
- Solid highest brightness: The LEDs are on continually. The power usage at this state will eat up your Duracel batteries within 4 hours, and rechargeable NiMH within 3.5 hours.
- Solid medium: The LEDs are on continually, but the brightness is reduced by half. The power usage at this state will eat up your Duracel batteries within 6 hours, and rechargeable NiMH within 5 hours.
- Steady fast blinking: The power usage at this state will eat up your Duracel batteries within 8 hours, and rechargeable NiMH within 7.5 hours.
If you use your light on and off, an hour or two each day, you can go as long as 9 hours for the solid light, or as long as 13 hours on blinking mode. Just be warned, when the batteries reaches the 1/2 way point of power spent, the LEDs will automatically dim to solid medium brightness strength to conserve power until the batteries are drained completely. The trick is to use the lights in blinking mode, which utilizes the highest power level or maximum brightness. The only annoyance is the blinking.The shell is nothing to laugh about. Although the batteries is housed in a twistable housing shell, the shell will not snap or fall apart on accidental drops. The shell survives so many of our three to 5 feet falls, onto hard concrete while we prepare for our trips, and launches from our mounts on quick stops because we did not ensure proper mounting attachment onto the mount. There are minor nicks and scratches because of the harsh surfaces, but the brightness remain the same regardless.
Overview:
If I have to invest in an effective headlight that doesn't break the bank to shine my path, this is it. Not only it's inexpensive, but it's a versatile to have on any equipment for good visibility in the dark. A couple of these strapped to your handle bar and helmet, and you're set to venture the highways and byways of the modern day. My suggestion is to use a combination of strong spot light (such as the Blackburn X3), in combination with this light acting as a flood light. With this combination, you can't outrun your light combos.
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Blackburn Voyager 4.0 Luxeon Bicycle HeadlightProduct Description: The new Voyager 4.0 will boldly go where no commuter light has gone before. With a potent Luxeon 1 watt LED emitter churning out 45 darkness-scalding lumens through a sophisticated beam-shaping optical lens, there is plenty of light to see the road or bike path. And unique to Blackburn, two independently controlled amber side LED's provide 180 degrees of feel-good, be-seen visibilty. The emitter uses the same anti-dimming Constant Current Technology as our powerful System X lights, and four AA batteries will provide 4 hours of runtime at full brightness or 10 hours on low. There is also separate flash modes for the side LED's and the main beam.
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I'm generous, at times, in reviewing books or CDs and saying 5 stars; and maybe this item is easier to judge; but I have no problems giving it a top rating. 
