Reviewed: the best bike lights from under £10 to over £250
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Version 0 of 1. Unlikely as it almost seems after a particularly dry and balmy September, the autumn nights are closing in around us at some pace. It’s at this point that a cyclist’s thoughts turn to staying visible in the dark. We’ve remarked before on this blog at the astonishing advances in bike light technology – in only about two decades we’ve gone from brick-weight behemoths which emitted a barely discernible glow and had a battery life better measured in minutes rather than hours, to the current tiny USB-charged devices with their supernova-power LED beams. The eight I’ve tested this year are designed for road or commuter cycling – there is a whole other, eye-bulgingly expensive realm for things like night-time mountain biking – and I tested them mainly on urban roads. Any judgement as to the safety they offer is inevitably subjective, beyond noting I was, thankfully, not taken out by a car while using any of them. • The lights were all supplied by online bike shop Wiggle. I’ve cited the list price for each light, but you can often get them for less. LifeLine Essential – £18.99 a pair Made by Wiggle’s own house brand, at less than £10 a light – about £7.50 in the current sale – these are, as you’d expect, more for chucking in your pocket in case you’re out late, or for a shorter commute. They won’t do much on an unlit road. But they’re bright enough to be seen, with a basic but functional on/off switch where you push down the entire light body, and a flash option. The simple rubber strap has a range of holes, usefully meaning you can fix the lights to more or less any bit of a bike. They’re too basic to have USB charging, but the flat 2032-type batteries are cheap and easy to replace, and give a claimed life of 150 hours in flash mode. LifeLine USB – £32 a pair The slightly bigger sibling of the Essential set, these have a similar look and function but significantly more power and, as the name suggests, a USB port for charging, as well as an extra high beam mode. As with the cheaper set, the switch is sufficiently firm to make it unlikely to go off in a bag or pocket – a real downside for some lights – and it has the same fix-to-anything strap. Rechargeable lights last less time than batteries, but with three hours on full beam (50 hours on flash) this is more than compensated for by not having to worry about batteries. Knog Boomer - £46 a pair Melbourne-based Knog have built up something of a reputation as the trendy urban rider’s light of choice, with their compact, rounded, designs. The Boomer sits somewhere in the middle of the range, and features Knog’s trademark rubber casing and sticky, stretchy attachment band. While a touch above pocket-sized – you’d need a big-ish pocket – they’re lightweight but pretty powerful, easily enough for most urban riding needs. Rather than USB-charging, each light takes a pair of AAA batteries, involving a slightly tricky peeling back of the rubber casing to expose the plastic innards. This minor fuss and cost brings you a claimed 36 hours of flashing life for the front light, 72 for the rear. My one worry is the simple, single-push switch, which seems quite easily turned on by accident. Several times I opened my bag to find one of the Boomers flashing away. It’s no fun to begin a night-time ride home only to find your light batteries unexpectedly flat. Knog Blinder – about £35 each A step up in the Knog range, and the extra £25 or so brings you USB-charging – a tiny USB stick pops out from the rear of the light – minimal size and weight, and retina-troubling levels of brightness. I use a Blinder rear light as my own commuter choice, and it’s easily vivid enough to stand out amid a crowded urban street, especially with the large range of 70s disco-style flash options. The only downfall, for me, is the fastening. While simple and secure it stretches a lot on wider diameter handlebars or seatposts. The strap of my original Blinder snapped after a few months’ use, and it transpired they’re not recommended for bigger gauge 31.6mm seatposts. To their credit, Knog have not just toughened the strap but they quietly send out a replacement light if you complain. Brainy Bike Lights - £45 a pair These are the jokers in the pack. Eschewing brightness and complete portability, these fairly sizeable squares from a brand-new British start-up instead have as their selling point the distinctive illuminated cyclist icon. On first look they’re not very impressive – the image is clear, but whether on full beam or flashing are not at all bright by modern light standards. The argument is, however, that they work in a different way. The manufacturers say that the bike outline helps them stand out in a busy urban environment, and alerts drivers intuitively to a rider’s presence, quickening reaction times. A big claim, but they are able to back it up with a study by experimental psychologists at Oxford university. The science credentials are further burnished by the lights being on sale in the Science Museum’s shop. It’s impressive stuff, but I couldn’t help feeling instinctively worried that what works in a lab test might not always transfer to the chaos of an urban street. To my slightly paranoid eyes they can’t help looking a bit weedy and under-powered. But I’m happy to concede that’s a subjective view. Exposure Trace - £95 a pair Just shy of £100 is a lot to pay for a pair of lights, but these are powerful, tiny and beautifully-made USB-charged creations from a West Sussex-based company. I spent a few winters happily relying on an earlier incarnation of these lights, until their one weak spot – an on/off system operated by twisting the bulb end – finally gave up. The new versions have a much more reliable method, operated by a quick double press of a rubberised button, making in-the-bag illumination very unlikely. If you can justify the cost these are pocket-sized, very tough – the metal case shrugs off accidental drops – and bright enough for just about anything. Exposure Strada and Blaze (£260 and £100) “Send me something stupidly bright,” I asked Wiggle’s people, and they didn’t let me down. The Strada, in particular, is overkill for all but those navigating the murkiest of unlit roads, just on performance grounds, let alone the wallet-worrying price. A chunky, twin-light metal thing which clips tightly to a bar-based clamp, it’s effectively a portable car headlight – run it on full beam in the city and the main danger would be dazed and dazzled pedestrians wandering helplessly into your path. But where there’s no light it will give you unrivalled confidence. Luckily, the Strada comes with a clever remote button you can strap to the handbar, allowing you to switch quickly to a “dip” mode for oncoming traffic. There are also flash modes and a handy LED-based battery gauge. The Blaze, meanwhile, is essentially a beefed-up version of the Trace rear light, with an even tougher aluminium case and a red light roughly on a brightness par with the sort of thing usually found on an aircraft wing or the port side of a container ship. If someone runs into you when that’s illuminated, then they simply weren’t looking. And that is, of course, a whole other problem, and not one any bike light manufacturer has yet been able to solve. |