Products
Commuter lights A decent sets of lights is vital for safe winter commuting. We review six options from £20 to £150 with different battery and accessory set-ups Light & Motion Stella 150N £149.99 www.bikelights.com ■ Run time: 2.75hrs (max) ■ Recharge time: 10hrs This kit offers a couple of mounting options: either lamp clipped to handlebar with battery secured below stem, or Velcro’d neatly on top of your helmet. The latter’s only possible due to the featherweight NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) battery pack and is ideal if you sometimes ride off-road, especially for peering around trees or obstacles. One button toggles between high, low and flashing modes and in use the
light consistently exceeded its claimed burn times on all settings, producing a deep centre spot with softer fill to the edge of its range. Recharging is an overnight job though. Overall we'd rate this as the most powerful light in its class. JK
Cateye EL020 Hybrid £49.99
Smart Lunar 25 £54.95
www.cateye.com
www.fisheroutdoor.co.uk ■ Run time: 8.5hrs (F); 62hrs (R) ■ Recharge time: 23 hours for 2900mAH AA battery
■ Run time: 11hrs alkaline; 3hrs solar (constant) ■ Recharge time: 7hrs (solar) Lighting your way as you ‘boldly go’, the EL020 looks like something Captain Kirk would use to seek out new life forms. You can switch between an internal NiMH battery charged by a solar panel or a standard AA battery if that runs out. The cut-away sides give good visibility, and the beam is focused and powerful enough to cover 15 metres on a dark road. You may be wondering whether a solar light is a gimmick, but place it in a well-lit area at work for a day and you’ll be persuaded otherwise on your commute home. Though pricey, this sturdy, practical light comes highly recommended. MM
Too many bike lights are functional black boxes that have never known a designer’s tender touch. Enter Smart’s Lunar range to put top-drawer lighting in an attractive and weatherproof casing. The front light houses a single LED that’ll comfortably illuminate 8-10 metres ahead on a dark road in standard or boost mode. It also outperformed Smart’s seven-hour estimated burn time and both flashing mode and side cut-aways combine to give you added visibility. The half-watt rear lamp is admittedly more boxy, but throws out an incredibly bright light in steady mode for 62 hours. Over five days after we turned it on, it was still going strong. It’s truly hard to find fault with this great value, attractive commuting lightset. MM
Blackburn Flea, £24.99 each
Cateye HL-EL320/ TL-LD610 £59.99
www.blackburndesign.com
www.cateye.com
■ Run time: 12hrs (low) ■ Recharge time: 45mins Easily the smallest lights in the review, the Flea packs a lot of illumination into a featherweight package. Slip them in your bag or pocket and you always have a back-up. In flashing mode, you’ll grab the attention of traffic for at least 50 metres, though the beam isn’t wide or distinct enough to show your path ahead at speed in one of the two steady modes. The other big attraction of the Flea is the choice of recharge modes — it gets its name from the way it can suck power from a standard battery with the supplied charger, or you can buy an appropriate USB or solar charger. Small is beautiful and well worth it here. MM
■ Run time: 102hrs (F), 109hrs (R) ■ Battery type: 4 AA (F), 2 AAA (R) If you’re after a lightset that burns forever, this Cateye kit is worth hunting down. Both units finally gave up the ghost more than five days after we started testing them! The single-LED front EL320, powered by four AA cells, just lost out to the five-LED rear LD610 with its two AAA batteries; some clever optics make this a particularly impressive tail-light. But there are downsides: housing four batteries makes the EL320 bulky and reports from long-term testers support our concerns about the build quality and fragile catches. A little on the expensive side too. MM
Blackburn Mars 3.0, £19.99 www.blackburndesign.com ■ Run Time: 60 hours ■ Battery type: 2 AAA Since the Mars 3.0 arrived it’s been a permanent fixture on our seatposts. Five rear red and two side amber LEDs kick out a wonderfully bright lightshow. It squeezes an incredible 60-hour
runtime from its two AAA batteries, so the new tool-free casing isn’t something you’ll be needing to fiddle with too often. MM
ONE TO WATCH New from Exposure’s stable comes the Spark (£100), a high powered front light that offers a 220 lumen output and is powered by two Lithium-Ion cells. Regular users can upgrade with Spark’s rechargeable battery kit. Run times are claimed at 1.5 hours on maximum setting and 12 hours on low with the rechargeable battery, and 2.5-20 hours using disposables. At just 72g, it’s a cable-free lamp tailor-made for commuting. Full test next issue. www.exposurelights.com
December 2009-January 2010
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