Dual Dinotte 200L lights mounted on Sharon's bike...
A member of the Bike Forums.net rando sub-forum wanted photographic proof that symetric bike lights where more blinding than a vehicle’s head lights so I took these photos this morning.
Dual Dinotte 200L lights & Ford F150 on low beam...
Dinottes are far more blinding than two full size pick truck head lights. The truck is actually emitting far more light than the Dinottes, but this light is aimed down at the road so I can drive safely at 120kph on a pitch dark highway. Aimed this way the light doesn’t bother oncoming traffic.
Dual Dinotte 200L lights & Ford F150 lights on high beam...
Both sets of light are blinding and quite irritating. Note that the Dinottes hold their own against a full size pick up truck with its lights on high beam.
B&M Ixon IQ & Ford F150 on low beam...
B&M Ixon IQ and F150 on low beam – both sets of lights are clearly visible to oncoming traffic, but neither are blinding and both sets of lights put the majority of their output where it’s actually useful – on the road.
The Lazy Rando Blog... 
nice work on the recent light posts vik… i’m a fan of the euro style lights. unfortuneately a trip over the bars on the pugs in the snow cracked my ixon iq… so i’m zip tying it shut for now. will likely replace it this summer when i rebuild the bike $$ war chest. such a great light!
I admit i had my doubts, but this photo essay is really quite persuasive. I might have to look to Germany for my next set of lights. And start saving for a dyno-hub.
@Val – I love the dynohub concept, but I must admit the Ixon IQ with rechargeables gets a week of lighting for a 1hr round trip commute on high and several weeks on low [which is fine in town for a been seen light].
That limits the battery swap/recharge hassle and at $110USD [cheaper from Germany direct] it’s hard to find fault vs. the cost of a dynohub + wheel – not to mention you can swap between bikes in 10 seconds.
I’ll still do the dynohub thing on some of my bikes, but that’s more because I enjoy the bike geekery of them then a real need.
@Mike – thanks….I’ve had many a good Pugsely crash….much more fun on snow than dirt and rocks!
Really useful and important lights test Vic from a safety point of view. To my knowledge no one has had the good sense to think about this beam blindness problem and actually test it out with photos.This has seriously made me re-think how I position and mount my lights on my bikes and I’ll be doing my own tests to see how blinding my current set up is. Most of us just think about getting more light output but we don’t usually think enough about whether or not we are causing problems for oncoming traffic.
I’ll be getting some of those Ixon IQ rechargeables for my commuting, for sure.
Thanks, Vik, for the post and the photos. Really helpful. One thing is strange though – that you fired up both Dinotte lights instead of just one. Ultimately it doesn’t change the result, however it does make it look worse than if you used just one light. Finally I received the Li-Ion battery so I was able to hook up the B&M Cyo Plus light to it, and used it for this morning commute. Works very well.
@Micheal – I used two Dinottes because that seemed fair with two full size pick up headlights in the frame. On my night rides I usually have two lights going as does my GF for her commutes and other friends that have night lighting setups.
The Dinottes don’t put the light on the road as effectively as an IXon IQ so you’ll probably want two with slightly different aiming points to “build” the same amount of light on the road.
I have some video of a single Dinotte at night that has been posted to the blog if you want to see what just one is like.