Spot

I went through a number of light setups in preparation for a 100 mile race, and I found this one to be a good compromise between weight and brightness. I don't like having a huge battery pack bouncing around on my head. Was it optimal for ultras? No, but this isn't a running site. It's served me well for climbing over the past 2 years. Note that if you do use it for running the band attachment to the light isn't ideal so it sometimes falls off. Wish BD would fix this flaw.

i had always owned a petzl tikka and thought they were great. then one night i was climbing with a friend who had an actually bright headlamp with a spotlight feature. very quickly i started seeing the limits of my tikka. eventually i wanted to buy a new headlamp and started researching and borrowing as many as i could. i loved the spotlight features of many HEAVY headlamps, but thought they often lacked the close range lighting. on the other hand, i didn't like the short range of lamps like the tikka. there are a couple out there that do both fairly well... that is if you want to carry 8 ounces around just in case. i mostly climb alpine rock so the ultimate brightness of these heavy lamps wasn't as important to me as something that was light and could light up a route decently (more than 20'). i was about to give up when i stumbled upon the spot. i read 392470327 review about it and hesitated to buy it because a lot of people said it was too fragile. but i went out on a limb and bought the spot because of its "spot" feature and its low weight (less than a tikka). so far i've used it for trail running at night, night sport climbing, glacier slogging, night alpine rock (hey, you always get the route to yourself!) and everything else a normal flashlight is used for. i love it. it's flood mode is just as bright as the tikka plus but it's added spot feature extends the range almost twice as far. it isn't an 8 ounce beast, but then again, it isn't an 8 ounch beast. yes, it might be a bit more fragile than a tikka but it is much more versatile. even if i sit on my spot and break it, i'll buy another one. also, battery life is comparable to a tikka.

This headlamp is great. The spotlight feature is great for spotting cairns at night. Batteries last pretty long, and the headlamp doesn't weigh very much either.

I used it last weekend on a 56 mile circuit, using it at night for about 9 hours, and it put out plenty of light! I also really like the dim function so you can stretch the battery life if you don't need the full brightness. I'm not crazy about the strap, because it some times turns into a minor cluster when trying to put it on in the dark, but it's certainly not enough of a hindrence that I wouldn't recommend the lamp. I in fact heartily endorse it!

I needed an additional headlamp and bought this one on clearance because it was a good combination of price ($30) and lumens (90). I expected it to be similar to my Petzl Tikka plus, but when I first turned in on my reaction was "Whoa!" This thing puts out serious light! I've only used it in the back yard so far but this thing is amazing and for the price ($40 new currently) it can't be beat! I also love the lock feature which prevents it from draining battery life if it happens to get turned bumped on while in your pack.