More Information
 On: 2007-10-11
Pros:
Pure white light. Incredibly bright and incredibly tiny. Light weight. Low Profile: Does not add bulk to the handlebar. Simple O ring bar mount installation. Well crafted. Ruggedly made. Niterider technical support is great.
Cons:
Beam is neither a spot nor wide angle. Can be hard on the hands getting standard o-ring mount in place. Harder to remove. Pricey at retail.
Got it for $149 since its discontinued, being replaced by the MiNewt X2 Dual. I dont like the new MiNewt X2s Titanium finish color or the $230 they can charge. But for $150 this was an outrageous deal. I still see the MiNewt single beam selling on the web for $150-180
First off I see many people complaining about the o-ring mount. To me this is one of the strong points of this design. Niterider please dont change it. Ive owned a Vistalite setup before and I had two of the plastic quick release mount clamps break rendering the whole thing useless. If the O-ring breaks you can get them from a hardware store or for now free from Niterider. The new Niterider ones even have a molded on tab to ease o-ring installation.
My old Vistalight mounts made the light housing sit up so high on the bar that it ruined the clean look of the handlebars. By contrast the Niterider mount is low profile and the housing so attractive in the matte black aluminum finish that I never take them off my bike.
The light is pure white and the illumination pattern is uniform. Dont stare into the beam, Itll hurt your eyes. The flashing mode is great and I use it during the morning and at dusk to get the attention of drivers. During the day I even have cars defer their merging until I passed them by. Maybe the flashing made them think I was a bike cop. With the flash mode on you can see the beam reflection on traffic reflectors and signs a hundred feet ahead. Impressive.
Each of the housings has a blue\\red LED to indicate battery condition. Some have complained about the brightness of the batterys blue LED but if you mount the battery to the underside of the bar or tube you wont see it.
The water resistant connectors are high quality and the cabling is durable and thick.
The battery is tiny, no bigger than my Garmin Edge305 cyclometer. The whole setup is lightweight. I wish the run time were longer (1hr30min or 3hrs). but hey my total commute is only 50 minutes so thats fine.
The new MiNewt X2 is supposed to be twice as bright but this model is in my opinion plenty bright enough and certainly brighter than my Vistalite standard.
Besides I saved almost $100 dollars and got the black housings I preferred. For less than the price of the Minewt X2 single Ive got two LED beams that can be stacked or spread for maximum coverage/intensity.
Also you can always order the upgraded LED assemblies from the company since the battery assembly hasnt changed.
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