Cateye on road full#

Jack Luke / Immediate MediaĬyclists riding in lit urban areas, who don’t need lights to illuminate the road ahead, may only need a unit with a few hundred lumens – but if you venture on to unlit roads or paths, that’s unlikely to be enough, so you’ll need something more powerful.įor urban commuting, 200 lumens should be sufficient. This is the measure of how much light falls on a surface.Ģ00 lumens is sufficient for riding in lit urban areas. The power of some bike lights – usually dynamo-powered headlights and StVZO-compliant battery-powered lights – is expressed in lux.

Lumens are the unit by which the total amount of light emitted from a source is measured.Ĭonsequently, the amount of lumens a light offers tends to be the headline specification because a larger number essentially promises that the light will be brighter. The power of a bike light is usually expressed in lumens. Our bike light reviews are mainly focused on front lights that will enable you to see where you are going on unlit cycle paths or rural roads.

Ian Lintonīike lights are split into two categories: those that provide enough illumination to enable you to clearly see what’s ahead of you, and those that are designed to simply ensure that you’re seen by other road users – lights to see and lights to be seen, as it were. The most powerful lights can be a true lumen bazooka, illuminating the road or trail.

Cateye on road full#

Read our full Lezyne Lite Drive 1000XL front and Lezyne KTV Pro Drive 75 rear lights review.The rear light puts out a slightly middling 75 lumens at full power, but does offer an impressive 270 degrees of visibility. The tough, rubber-band style mounting system makes adding/removing the lights a cinch, though they’re arguably a little less secure than ratcheted or bolt-mounted options. Its CNC-machined aluminium build quality is excellent too, and its IXP7 waterproof rating is very welcome. You’ll only get around 80 minutes at this power, but dropping it down to the second highest output (which sits at 500 lumens) provides just under three hours of run time, which ought to be enough for even the longest of commutes. With 1,000 lumens at full power, Lezyne’s Lite Drive 1000XL provides more than enough brightness and beam spread for riding on unlit roads. 1,000 lumens front, 75 lumens rear at max power.Bright with excellent peripheral lighting.Versatile light set with an excellent build quality.The Lezyne Lite Drive 1000XL front and Lezyne KTV Pro Drive 75 rear lights are super well-made. The payoff for this is a short run time in static mode, lasting only a few hours. With 350 lumens, it puts out an enormous amount of light. The commuting light became more reactive than the club ride light, which has presumably grown used to more consistent riding. Our tester had two of these lights, one for commuting and one for club rides. The light will also gather data to learn behavioural characteristics and respond accordingly, with the light changing output based on movement and ride style. The app will let you choose between six modes and a variety of features including a braking mode and theft alarm. These can be controlled via its central button or the See.Sense app. The See.Sense Icon 3 is a high-quality – and high-tech – rear bike light. High brightness and customisable output.The See.Sense Icon3 is a high-power and highly customisable rear light. It’s a beautifully made light, if expensive, although there are lower-priced options that don’t include the AKTiv tech. Setup is fiddly both for the alloy mount and for the different beam patterns, which you need to select with the light off, meaning you have to go through the process again if you don’t like the result. When it comes time to recharge, Exposure has its own proprietary cable. Run time is around two hours on full power. The light even detects if you’ve mounted it above or below the bars and adjusts the beam pattern to the different orientations. You can wire in a remote for bar-top control as well.Īn LED display on the rear shows residual battery and runtime. It’s got even more tech built in, with optional detection of oncoming traffic, which automatically dips the beam – a useful feature with such high output. The latest Strada Mk11 SB AKTiv road light is now up to 1,600 lumens from 1,200 lumens a few years ago. Pros: A well-designed, high-tech, high-performance illuminatorĮxposure has been making high-performance, high-tech lights in the UK for over a decade and is adding more power and extra functionality year by year.The Strada has a maximum output of 1,600 lumens.