New Bike Light (again)

A photo showing the beam pattern right in front of the bike.

My mounting system

A photo of the whole light and mount

As some of you may know, I have a VistaLite light system that I bought several years ago for a 24 hour mountain bike race that I did. Lately I have been having problems with the batteries, they seem to die out in about 20 mins from a full charge, often leaving me in the dark for the trip home. I've been trying to think of an alternative to the VistaLite system for a few weeks now. Ideally a Dyno front hub with front and rear lights would be the best, except that it would cost several hundred dollars for that. Another lighting system would cost me around the $250 that I paid for the VistaLite system that I bought and would still leave me saddled with batteries that would likely go the route of the VistaLite ones in short order. I have several LED flashlights that are very bright and last a very long time on just common batteries. My best one is a 3Watt Maglite flashlight, it is huge and very heavy though, not the best to hang off the handlebars of my bike. Several of my other flashlights are bright but have a very focused light that wouldn't work for a bike light. So I got a 1 Watt LED light that Dorcy makes with an adjustable beam, it takes two AA batteries that are the same as my camera takes. Next I ripped the mounting braket off my VistaLite headlamp and then I went looking for those little plastic things that you always get with cycling stuff for mounting it to handlebars and other round stuff. I found a good one and then used a bolt to connect it to the VistaLite bracket. Then I attached the whole works to the handlebars. Since the VistaLite bracket has a small knob on the bold for it you can loosen it by hand, I used this to hold the flashlight so I can take it off downtown in case it get's stolen when I'm parked. I think that the light will be at least as bright as the VistaLite it replaces, and so far I've ran it for 4.5hours without the batteries going low at all, of course in the cold weather battery life will suffer, but I'll be using NiMH rechargeables, so they should still last as long as a conventional throwaway battery will. I'll post something after my first ride with the new light and let you guys know how it works. Until then, ride safe and have fun.