Friday, June 28, 2013

Surly Moonlander sighting!

Went to my grocery store tonight and saw this amazing bike that looks like it needed to be motorized!!!

It's a Surly Moonlander bike with Surly Clown Shoe wheels and Surly Big Fat Larry tires. Amazing!





Friday, June 21, 2013

Grin Technologies Cycle Lumenator compared to MagicShine MJ808s

I've picked up a full set of ebikes.ca aka Grin Technologies lights recently from Endless-sphere.com. I'll feature the most powerful one first, the Cycle Lumenator.

When I heard about the Cycle Lumenator when it was first introduced in May of 2010, I wanted one. It looked to be very well made and very, very bright. I had no idea how bright until I got mine recently. Even though it looks well used, this very small unit puts out more light than the Magicshine MJ808 lights that I had thought were very bright before! The Cycle Lumenator is stated to put out 1000 lumens of light. Even though the MagicShine MJ808 is stated to put out 900 lumens of light, the Cycle Lumenator is MUCH, MUCH brighter! I will try and put up some photos soon showing the difference.

The Cycle Lumenator is also a very compact unit. It's actually smaller than the MagicShine MJ808.

Here are some close-ups of the Ebikes.ca Cycle Lumenator. It's a solidly built unit that has a very well made handlebar mount. The light can be easily installed and removed with only one knob. The power cord is detachable. If you have a newer Cycle Analyst meter, you can attach a power socket to your CA so that you can plug the Cycle Lumenator directly into it, eliminating another cable run to the battery.



On to the light comparison!

Here's the layout of my handlebars. Pretty crowded. From left to right. 1. MagicShine MJ808 (3 mode), 2. eBikes.ca Cycle Lumenator, 3. eBikes.ca Front 12 LED with Button (not reviewed, yet!), 4. MagicShine MJ808 (5 mode). You can see that the Cycle Lumenator is a more compact unit even though it has four LEDs.

 Here's a shot of them when lit.


 Here are some shots of the beam patterns of the three lights (Early MJ808 (3 mode), Later MJ808 (5 mode), Cycle Lumenator.

MagicShine MJ808 (3 mode). Quite a significant hot spot in the middle.

MagicShine MJ808 (5 mode). Fairly diffuse, but weaker looking light.

eBikes.ca Cycle Lumenator. Very even and very powerful wash light.

Both MagicShine lights combined. I realize now that the chair blocked some of the light from the 5 mode MagicShine. Sorry about that.

Both MagicShine lights and the Cycle Lumenator all at once! I pity folks who are approaching me at night! :)