Back sooner than I thought!
Nice snowy run last night which gave me the excuse to try out a my new head torch from Alpkit.
The Gamma was a bit of an impulse buy - persuaded by some good reviews and very reasonable price of £12.50 (with batteries included!). The main beam is slightly brighter than the default beam on my Petzl Tikka XP headtorch (which cost around £20 more) but the Gamma doesn’t have the wide angle lens and the resulting spread of light which I find helpful (but not really essential) for running offroad.
The separate battery pack on the Gamma which is fitted to the rear if the headstrap (back of the head) makes the it much more comfortable to wear while running compared to the Tikka XP as the weight is equally distributed and negates the wobble/bashed on the forehead effect.
The Gamma has a strap that runs across the top of the head which holds the lamp securely and I think must contribute to the lack of been bashed on the fod. The battery pack also has a handy red LED light so motorists can see you trudging (or riding) along those roads, which I thought was a nice touch (Although it doesn’t have the battery indiactor of the Tikka which is useful when you remember to check - pitch black run home anyone?).
Overall I prefer the Alpkit Gamma over the Tikka XP* and it costs around 1/3 of the price!
Bigup to the Alpkit massive!
*to be fair I think the Tikka design is now a few years old and the LED light power seems to have gone all Moore’s Law