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My question is after my last trip my headlamp is dead. I am an avid mountain biker. When mountaineering I was thinking why couldn't I simple take my HID Niterider 900 lumes bike light? The battery has a cable so I could carry it in my jacket and keep it warm. It is a bit heavier than a normal headlamp but not by much. So, has anyone ever used a Niterider for this purpose? Anyone know if an HID light would be a bad choice for some reason? They use them in high end cars (the blue looking headlights). Thanks for the help in advance.

Ron D.

the only downside to using a niterider that i can think of, aside from the weight, would be having to worry about blinding your climbing partners. those lights are very bright and i would not want to get one of those shone right in my eyes if my partner turned around to talk to me.

I've used HID lights for diving for about 15 years. It's a different environment than mountaineering, though lights do get physically beaten up when taken out on boats in rough seas. They are the standard choice now for cave diving, where you need high illumination power together with efficiency so that you can get a mult-hour burn time with a reasonably-sized battery pack. The main problems with them are that the bulbs are delicate (compared to LEDs) and very expensive (compared to incandescent), and the electronics required to strike them tend to be bulky and expensive. Also, HID bulb life, while much longer than incandescent, is shorter than LED, especially if the bulbs are turned off and on frequently. Field replacement of the bulb could be a problem.

If your NiteRider light has packaged the bulb in such a way that you are comfortable with its durability in a mountaineering environment, and the overall size and weight are OK, then why not try it and see how it works? My guess is that it's a lot more light power than you need for most climbing, but if it works it works.

I also have some powerful bike lights but I don't think I'd want to take them on a trip to the mountains. There are plenty of small headlamps that have enough reach for most things you do in the dark mountaineering.
One thing I could see as a negative (at least with the bike lights I have) is that although the light is very strong, the battery life is very short. In the mountains I would like to have something that would at least function on a set of batteries for at least a whole night not just a few hours.

cbcbd wrote:I also have some powerful bike lights but I don't think I'd want to take them on a trip to the mountains. There are plenty of small headlamps that have enough reach for most things you do in the dark mountaineering.
One thing I could see as a negative (at least with the bike lights I have) is that although the light is very strong, the battery life is very short. In the mountains I would like to have something that would at least function on a set of batteries for at least a whole night not just a few hours.

Actually that's another good point - the HIDs I have used are basically consistent luminosity when the battery voltage is above a certain level, but when the battery voltage drops below that level they sputter out and can't be re-lit. LEDs and incandescent bulbs grow progressively dimmer as battery voltage drops, but don't just abruptly die. You'd want to be sure your battery pack can keep the light on for as long as you need it (which may be many hours) including under cold conditions.

Battery life on the HID Niterider is terrible compared to an LED headlamp and the weight/bulk is terribly high considering a tiny headlamp is all that is needed.

I have used this for a while and it has worked great.