LED Lights Review
LED technology continues to march on, so let’s look at the latest batch of high-powered lights to get you out on the trail this winter.
Bikecorp www.cygolite.com
Over the years I’ve become a huge fan of ‘all-in-one’ rechargeable lights. While this is mainly the domain of commuter style lights that are too dim for off-road use, there are a few that are powerful enough for off-road applications. I like the ease of strapping the light to the bars and hitting the trail—no mucking around trying to mount battery bags or winding excessively long wires around the frame. They are also handy when travelling, as you only need to carry the self-contained light unit and they double as a torch.
One year ago we reviewed the Cygolite Trion 600; an all-in-one light that put out a respectable 600 lumens. It was certainly bright enough for off-road duties but its 258g weight meant that it was a handlebar only light. With the Trion in mind, we were keen to test the smaller and lighter Milion 200—a 200 lumen light. On paper, the 130g claimed weight makes it look like a viable option for helmet mounting, and it comes standard with both helmet and handlebar mounts supplied.
Sure, 200 lumens isn’t much these days but there’s no need to carry a battery in your jersey pocket or backpack, and no wires running up to your helmet. This provides a real sense of freedom that may make the compromise in light output worthwhile. For example, you can remove your pack to grab some food or a spare tube without having your helmet reefed off by the power chord. At $259, the Milion is also reasonably affordable for a compact, self-contained helmet light—assuming it is up to the task once you hit the dirt.
In practice, the Milion wasn’t all I’d hoped for. I’d pictured it as a slightly more affordable version of the ‘Joystick’ from UK brand Exposure. The light output may have been vaguely comparable but it simply wasn’t that great in helmet mounted applications. While the main unit was acceptably light at 136g, this blew out to 156g once the mounting bracket was fitted. At this weight, it could be viable as a helmet light but the mount makes the unit sit quite high above the helmet, and this made it feel a lot heavier than it really was. I found myself tightening my chinstrap and cranking up my retention system in an effort to stop the helmet moving around on my head—after a while I’d wind up with a headache.
The light output on high beam wouldn’t inspire confidence as a stand-alone handlebar mounted system. It was however passable as a ‘supplementary light’ to complement a more powerful handlebar light. With a little under three hours of light on full power, it should do the trick for most night rides. There is a lower beam that doubles the run-time, but the light output would only suffice for non-technical climbing. Additionally, the mode sequence is impractical, as you actually have to go through a flashing mode and then switch it off before it goes back to full power—not something that you want to do whilst riding on the dirt.
All of these comments shouldn’t be taken as faults, it’s more confirmation that this is a commuter light that you could use on the dirt, rather than a dedicated off-road light. Its compact size, USB charging option, flash mode and respectable output for road riding, all add up to make the Milion a very good commuter light.
Cygolite: Good use of the available power but not enough to inspire any confidence as a stand-alone light.
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Exposure Diablo $599
Exposure Diablo $599Bike Box (03) 9555 5800 / www.exposurelights.com
Exposure was one of the first brands to jump on the LED bandwagon and the rest of the industry has now followed suit. Their specialty has been high-powered, self-contained rechargeable lights for serious off-road use. They may not be the flat out brightest, but they’ve always been the most convenient.
While they make a number of bar mounted lights in the 400 to 900 lumen range, until recently the 240 lumen Joystick was their only option suitable for helmet mounting. At just 96g all inclusive (that’s with mounting hardware too), you’d barely notice the Joystick on your head. Burn times ranged from three hours up to 24 hours on low beam. Where the Joystick fell short was in its light output; a relatively narrow spot beam made the most of the available power but it’s never going to set the trail ablaze.
For 2010 Exposure has introduced the Diablo—a new version of the Joystick that’s been on a course of steroids and pump’n iron! Again it is an all-in-one design and it utilises the same quick and easy to install mounting hardware as the Joystick. The head and tail of the Diablo taper up in size to accommodate a bigSeoulP7 LED and reflector. This bumps the weight up to 123g including the mount, which is still light enough to be unobtrusive on your head—especially with the relatively low profile that the mounting hardware provides.
With the super-sized P7 up front, Exposure claims a 700 lumen light output—a huge jump up from the 240 of the Joystick. While the output has more than doubled, the Diablo didn’t strike me as a super bright light. In a side-by-side comparison, the central hotspot of the Joystick remains clearly visible when you shine it over the Diablo’s beam, it’s just the light spread from the P7 is much broader. It illuminates an area roughly four times greater than the Joystick at a similar level of brightness. Around the edges it filters away nicely with no distinct ‘cut-off’ in the beam.
On the trail this means you have less tunnel vision effect and there is actually enough light to use the Diablo as a stand alone helmet light (the Joystick was only ever good enough to supplement a brighter handlebar mounted light). Those who ride lots of fast fire road descents may be disappointed by the lack of distance punch from the slightly diffused beam pattern but it works well in singletrack applications.
It may pump out a lot more light, but the integrated battery remains the same as the Joystick. As a result, the high beam run time drops to just one hour. Shorter off-road jaunts may be tackled with all guns blazing, but anything longer will see you making full use of the lower beam settings. In theory the mid-beam mode, which goes for three hours, should provide a similar output to the Joystick on full power (also three hours). However, the broader beam makes it appear much dimmer. It is certainly usable on the lower beam setting but it’s not the best once you are travelling fast. The lowest power setting gives you 10 hours of light but it’s really just for standing around fixing punctures and alike.
With judicious use of full power, the Diablo makes a great light. Only use the full 700 lumens on fast descents and tricky sections of trail and you’ll finish most rides with light to spare. It offers all the benefits of the Joystick with the option of more light when you really need it. Unfortunately this option comes at a price as the Diablo is almost double the price of the $320 Joystick.
Diablo: Quite a wide beam for a helmet light and an amazing output from such a compact unit.
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Ktronik www.cncdelite.com
K-Lite is an Aussie based custom light builder, so while they do have some standard offerings – like the Race Kit reviewed here – there’s also plenty of choice. You can opt for different battery sizes, light temperatures (colours), beam widths, switch locations, power outputs, charging options and more—just ask Kerry and he’ll be happy to fill in the details.
The K-Lite is based around a 30mm diameter machined alloy head that can be helmet or handlebar mounted. At 89g including the helmet mount, it is nice and light on your head. You can choose between a narrow beam Cree XPE or a Cree XPG wide beam LED. For this review as a helmet-mounted light, we went with the narrow beam option in a warm colour temperature. Kerry is a fan of running two lights and mixing up the colour temperatures—usually a ‘cool’ light on the bars and a ‘warm’ one on the helmet.
We ran it with a 200g 1,600mAh lithium polymer battery. With the claimed 826 lumen output of the test unit, we were getting around 3:15 on full power. Apparently the output of this LED can be bumped up to around the 1,000 lumen mark if required with a corresponding reduction in the burn time.
The warm colour temperature of this unit contrasted noticeably with the cold, white and stark colours that you find on most LED bike lights. The XPE LED had a distinct yellow hue that looked more an old school halogen light in its colour.
So, was the warm light better? Well no, just different. It worked well when helmet mounted as the warm light tends to be less reflective—glare is typically an issue when using helmet lights in mist conditions or on dusty trails. It also seemed to bring out a little more colour in the bush at night. When combined with a cold LED on the bars (the wide beam K-Lite LED reviewed opposite), the result was a rather natural looking light. The stark white beam on the bars tends to create more contrast between the shadow and light, making trail objects stand out a little more—a good feature to have on a handlebar light. All up I would say that there is some merit to mixing up the colour temperatures, although you do get the oddity of having the colour change to the warm beam alone as you look to the side and beyond the throw of the cold handlebar light.
K-Lite calls this a narrow beam but it wasn’t too pencil-like in its beam pattern. It produced enough spread to perform comfortably in singletrack and a good throw for the fire trails too. My kit had a remote switch with a short chord that was well suited to handlebar mounted applications—I feel that the integrated switch option would have been easier to locate when feeling around on your head.
While the high beam was very bright, there was still tons of light on the mid-beam, which extends the burn time to a healthy seven hours. I also liked that the low beam was only accessed by holding the mode button for a few seconds; it was too dim for riding, so each push of the power button goes from high to medium and back again—nice and simple to use whilst riding.
The charger is a standout feature of this kit. It is a high tech unit that can be programmed to charge any type of battery you want. It also has a digital display so you can see where the battery is at and how much charge time remains. In its standard mode it will charge the K-Lite battery in an hour but you can also choose the fast charge mode and do it in just 35-minutes. All you need to do is read up and learn how to drive it!
With all of its features, this is a serious lighting kit for the $399 price tag and another strong contender on the Aussie market.
K-lite: The warm colour temperature of the Cree XPE was very effective as a helmet light and this tiny unit produced plenty of light.
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SCV Imports (02) 4353 2633
The Seca is a familiar package that we have reviewed many times before; initially in a 700 lumen package and later in a more affordable 400 lumen package. Now we have the latest and greatest incarnation—the Seca 900 with, you guessed it, 900 lumens of light!
While the light output has changed, most features and its external appearance remain the same. It runs six LEDs with a specially designed reflector and profiled lens cover to shape the beam pattern. With the earlier models, we commented that the custom tuned beam pattern made the most of the available light. Now with 900 lumens on tap, there is some serious punch behind this light. It offers an impressive distance throw that shone further down the trail than any other light in this feature. While it is a relatively narrow beam, the lens also sends a diffused layer of light down to the trail immediately in front of the bike. This is the key feature of the Seca; you get an awesome distance throw completely losing the up close peripheral vision.
When handlebar mounted, this light is most comfortable in high speed situations; like super fast fire road descents and screaming singletracks. At lower speeds on twisty singletrack, the brighter central spot can be off-putting as you reef erratically on the bars causing the intense beam bounce from left to right across the trail. A dimmer power level helps but I found it worked best when you aimed the central beam a fair way up the trail. This allowed the central hot spot to spread further while you still had the diffused light up close to ride with at lower speed.
The intensity of the central beam wasn’t an issue when helmet mounted, as the light always goes where you are looking. This allowed it to perform on both open high speed trails as well as in slower tighter technical situations. In terms of its beam pattern, the Seca is ideal for helmet mounting. Unfortunately, the function of the helmet mounting bracket detracts from its performance in this regard. At 140g for the head unit and helmet mounting bracket, it is acceptably light and shouldn’t cause any issues. The mount is also easy to use and allows tool free swaps between helmet and handlebars. However, the trade-off for this convenience comes with the high positioning of the light above your head. The Seca may be light enough, but the high placement makes it feel much heavier than it really is. It may be annoying if you are sensitive to this sort of thing and it is also very prone to snagging low branches.
Beyond the light output, the mode button allows you to select between standard and ‘race’ settings. In its standard form you get three usable power settings and a flashing mode in the button pressing cycle. This proved irritating when off-road as you couldn’t avoid the flashing mode. Thankfully the race mode changes it to a simple high beam/low beam format, although you have to remember to activate race mode every time you switch the light on—I would prefer it if race mode could be turned into the default setting. In race mode the two settings provide almost 2.5 hours at 900 lumens or 10 hours at 225 lumens for extending the burn time whilst climbing. It’s also worth noting that the 225 lumen setting still appears brighter than most other lights that claim this sort of output.
All-in-all the Seca is a very professional piece of kit, and this gives a great deal of confidence. It has solid waterproof connectors and the battery is well protected within a hard case to minimise the chance of crash damage (lithium-ion batteries can actually ignite if they cop a big enough hit). The charger is a top quality unit too, offering fast charging. At $920 it is far from cheap but the overall quality of the kit is very clear.
Seca Race 900: Awesome distance punch that sets the trail alight for a long way—great for screaming fast fire roads.
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Bike Lighting (02) 4294 8548 / www.bikelighting.com.au
How much light?! It wasn’t that long ago that we thought 1,000 lumens was the Holy Grail for MTB lights, and most HID lights of an 07 vintage produced around 700 to 800 lumens. The Lumicycle System 4 twin set uses the latest Cree XPG LEDs, each of which produces 1,470 lumens—that’s a total of 2,940 lumens for this kit. What’s more, thisUKbased manufacturer has hinted at a further 20% power increase in the next batch of light, which should be available by the time you read this—that’s upwards of 3,600 lumens!
With those figures, you’d expect to receive a complementary pair of sunglasses with each pack. However, flick both lights to full power and first impressions are far from overwhelming. Most lights have a clear-cut beam with a hot spot that you can point down the centre of the trail. Aiming these lights proves a little difficult, as it’s hard to tell exactly which way they are pointing.
So where did all those lumens go to? This kit is equipped with two flood beam XPG emitters and they put out such a broad and diffused beam that the lights appear to lose much of their punch. The light is there but is spread much further across the trail and off into the bush on the sides. As a result, these lights won’t impress in a possum spotting competition and a 1,000 lumen mid or narrow beam light may appear brighter when shining it round the trees in your backyard.
Narrow beams tend to look very bright because they are, but only in one relatively small spot. While they may look impressive, having a super bright hot spot brings its own batch of problems. Your eyes tend to adjust for the bright central area but then it becomes very hard to see around the peripheries. This can give you a case of tunnel vision and make it harder to negotiate twisty trails, especially when the narrow beam is bar mounted.
Hit the trail with the twin flood beam Lumicycle and you soon realise that, despite first appearances, this thing really works. It allowed me to hit technical singletrack descents with 100% confidence and without feeling the need for a supplementary helmet mounted light. The only other light that I can remember offering a similar confidence level was the 50 watt Trail Tech HID that I reviewed three years ago—another super wide and diffused flood light. Yes, it lacked the distance throw offered by a narrower beam, 1,000 lumen light, but I never missed it. In fact I appreciated the uniformity of the light across the trail, finding it much easier on my eyes. Singletrack corners were illuminated before I turned my bars and it provided a terrific sense of balance on the trail. Those who see plenty of high-speed fire road descents may still feel the need for a spot beam and Lumicycle also offers this light in a twin spot or a spot/spread combination. For $51 extra you can also get a split twin system with two smaller 2,600mAh batteries; this allows you to run it as a helmet/handlebar where a spot/spread combination could work really well.
With the 5,200mAh battery we got just shy of 2:20 on full power. This can be bumped up to 10 hours on low beam, where it’s still cranking out 1,000 lumens. It’s worth pointing out that you really need gobs of power to make such a wide flood beam work—without heaps of power it would just look dim, as the light has to spread so far.
Looking beyond the light output, this light shares its main features with the other lights in the Lumicycle range. You get solid feeling connectors, tool free mounting brackets, easy to view fuel gauge lights and funky little toggle switches to control the power. Rather than cycling through dim modes to get to a bright one, you toggle up for more light and down for less—very intuitive. The brightest setting is called ‘boost’ and it stays there for three minutes and automatically fades back to the 2,100 lumen ‘high’ setting. It discourages you from using full power all the time and ensures that you can always have an extra ‘boost’ in reserve for the next technical section—I found this a worthwhile feature.
Not the lightest or most discrete lighting system but one that works extremely well on the trail.
Lumicycle: Yes, it’s 2,940 lumens but used in a very conservative manner; with no central hot spot and a wide flood, it works beautifully on twisty trails.
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Note: All of the night time trail photos were taken on a Canon 5D (28mm lens) with a 20 second exposure at F9 and an ISO of 400. Ten reflectors on the trail are spaced at 10 metre intervals so the furthest is 100m away from the light. These images should not be compared with our last lighting shootout as variations can occur with different print runs.
