I use the Varia front light too but I can’t recall any yellowing or strips. Ive just took a pick and I cant see any.
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Thanks for the reply. Just in case it’s not clear, the stripes are from the Detour. I’m hoping some Detour owners will reply with whether they get them or not.
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My front lighting strategy is the aforementioned Garmin Varia front light (solid) backed up with a Niterider Zwift 500 on flashing. It seems to be effective on my commute, touchwood. On my previous commute (more rural, twisty and undulating forest roads), I used to switch the Zwift 500 to solid on full beam and I also had a Zwift 450 also on full beam at the darkest bits or kept one flashing when it wasn’t too dark or kept them both flashing.
Prior to the Varia UT800 I used a Cateye Volt 400 on my helmet it wasn’t as good for speed and I prefer my helmet clear for train commuting.
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Yeah, I rarely use my Varia front light because of the yellow tint. Much prefer a whiter light for riding.
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That would bother me for sure. I don’t see stripes in this post Reddit - Dive into anything
I’d contact outbound for sure
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Thanks. Since so many people were enthusiastic about them, I was expecting a quick flurry of “yes, that’s normal” or “no, it’s not” posts before I went to the manufacturer, but I guess I’ll just write them.
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Not sure if this helps but I have their hangover helmet light and it doesn’t have those stripes
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Helpful! Thanks.
Just to close this out, I got a response from Outbound that “these are indeed normal, nothing wrong with the light, it’s something we did to the front lens (the vertical ribbing) that was there so that we could better blend the main spot of the beam down the road, and we decided after getting customer feedback that making the coverage down road more even and how we wanted it was worth a bit of nearfield uniformity.” They also mentioned that when they update the light they’ll be “changing the entire optical system”. I appreciate their quick response and how they immediately processed my return. Seems like a great company. Just not the right light for me at this time.
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Thanks for the update. They’ve been great at communicating in my experience as well. I think mine is a very early detour. I mentioned to them that I thought moving the light further forward and maybe ‘fanning’ the beam up at the edges as motorcycles do would be solid improvements. Seems like the first point has been a rolled in already.
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I don’t blame you. Adios
Their once a year sale is now live. Nothing eartshattering, but if you were on the fence…
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Bontrager have a reasonable solution in that they have a helmet with a strong magnet to which the light attaches - i feel if i were to crash the light would separate from the helmet in an acceptable manner
Lupine recently came out with the SL Grano (“Gravel” + “Nano”), which is about 200€ and is self-contained, i.e. no external battery pack. I really like the high beam on my SL AF, but if I were to stick to bike paths, this would defnitely be interesting.
Before the Lupine, I rode a fair amount at night with a Cateye G70.1. I do still use it as a daytime light to be seen because it’s reasonably small and lasts like 25 hours on the low setting, 4 hours on high. It’s perfectly useable at night, is fairly inexpensive, and has a GoPro style attachment.
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Are the Outbound lights water proof ? (tested by users, not by the specs)
I was looking for a replacement as well. I had a Lezyne before, with an IPX7 rating, but it stopped working during a heavy rain. I thought the battery was empty. But I could not have it working for a few weeks afterwards. I let it sit for a while, and it started working again, but it behaves strangely now
That’s is a can of worms that you opened …
A lot of smaller manufacturers struggle with this. I have had many See.Sense lights fail because of moisture or water ingress even though on paper, they were supposed to be water proof. Their return policy is spot-on, so I was always treated to a new light. But it is indeed a weakness that I don’t see covered very often.
I have had zero issues with e. g. Cateye lights in that regard.
I recently bought an outbound detour, and planned to make it my main light (with USB powerbanks) for through-the-night, long Audax events.
Sadly after getting it and playing with it for a few days it’s just not nearly as bright as I was anticipating, and I can’t use it for night riding at any decent speed.
I don’t quite understand how it’s got such glowing reviews online, as regardless of any benefits of beam pattern etc, it just doesn’t throw enough light forward to see road hazards.
My old lights I was hoping to replace are Moon Meteor Storm Pro. Similar total lumens on paper, but much brighter in use, even on medium. There’s no cutoff, I do not care at this point.
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Apologies if this has been covered earlier in the thread but after many years and different lights I’ve come to feel that a light of at least 1000 lumens is needed for road riding at decent speed to be able to see obstacles and where one is headed with adequate time to react. But what I also find very important is a light that uses replaceable batteries so you can carry spares and not risk getting caught without light before rides end. I am currently using Fenix BC26R rated up to 1600 lumens. It uses commonly available 21700 rechargeables. I carry at least one whenever I plan to ride into darkness. Though not a traditional bike light company it has proven to be a great light. Compact and powerful.
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I’ve tried a few options for my ultra races, and have landed on the Fenix BC26r… As mentioned above, the replaceable 21700 batteries mean you can extend the run time pretty infinitely. I’ve ran it both on the road and on multiple straight nights of singletrack. If they made a StVZO version specifically for road, I’d be really thrilled with that. I tried the Outbound Hangover and was disappointed with the run time, and also the inability to charge it while in use in any mode other than “low”. The other one I’ve had good luck with, but don’t fully “trust” is the Lumintop B01 which I’m sure was mentioned somewhere in this thread already as a budget option.
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