TrustFire Cree Torch used as a cycling nightlight

I have just purchased a TrustFire Cree torch to use as a helmet mounted night light for off road mountain biking. I already have a Hope Vision 1 LED Front Light that I have been using on my handlebars. This is fine for wide trails, familiar rides and some single track but on the really twisty stuff I was at a real disadvantage not being able to look round the corners to see what was coming and checking out obstacles before I was on them (or falling off everytime I hit one :-).

The Hope light cost about £80 and comes with a helmet mount but I didnt really want to pay out £80 for another one. I was put onto the TrustFire Cree torch by Ronnie over at brightonmtb.org. His article has a link to a review by muddymoles.org.uk and they both highly rate it. So I thought it was worth a shot and ordered a torch, two batteries and a charger using the links to dealextreme provided by muddymoles. I paid $38.29 US dollars via paypal which works out at about £28 British pounds. I ordered on the 6th of March and it was delivered by Royal Mail on the 11th of March (not bad considering it came from Hong Kong). It was packed in a small jiffy bag but did need signing for.

The exact parts I ordered were:

There are two things to note before you order.

  1. The battery charger comes with a US plug so you will need a US to UK adapter (if you live in the UK) to charge the batteries. I had a spare lead that worked with the charger and it does accept 100-240V 50-60HZ so you could just cut off the US plug and attach a UK one.
  2. It is just a torch so it comes with nothing for attaching it to your bike or helmet. I had a spare velcro strap (the type used for bundling laptop cables/leads together) and have been able to attach it to my helmet with this. It does have a thin wrist strap attached which would be useful if you are using it as a torch. So… make sure you have something to attach it to your bike/helmet with.

Once I had everything unpacked I setup the charger and started to charge the batteries. It took 7 hours to charge the batteries. The charger states its 500mA and the batteries are rated at 2500mAh so I was expecting it to take about 5 hours to charge. Had a quick play with the light and its nice and bright in a dark room. The weight of it isn’t noticable when wearing the helmet either. To late to go out for a ride so I will update this once I have tested the light and my homemade attachment up on the South downs.

update 1 – Probably won’t be able to take the lights out till monday. Did find a lot of info about the torches over at www.mtbr.com

TrustFire Cree torch mounted on my cycling helmet
TrustFire Cree torch mounted on my cycling helmet
TrustFire Cree torch helmet mounted
TrustFire Cree torch helmet mounted

Trustfire Cree Torch, charger and 18650 batteries

Trustfire Cree Torch, charger and 18650 batteries