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TECH NEWS

New Electron commuter light looks brilliant

Affordable power in a road-legal design

Electron are launching a new commuter light that we reckon is going to clean up this autumn and winter.

The Terra has an output of 120 lumens which is enough not only to get you noticed in town but also to light the way on unlit roads and cyclepaths when you’re going at a fair old clip. Unlike many high-power lights, the Terra’s lamp unit has side windows that ensure you get spotted at junctions and make it road-legal without the need to use a supplementary LED.

The run time is 9hrs on full beam and 18hrs on low power, and the on/off button glows red to warn you when the battery level is down to 15%, giving you plenty of time to get home before you run out of juice.

That little plate on the top of the lamp unit is replaceable so if you flip the bike over to sort out a mechanical and scratch it up, you can always fit a new one. And although we didn’t get much time to play with the Terra, adjusting the angle of the beam seemed perfectly simple.

The Terra 2 is a similar set up but with two independently adjustable lamps – one spot and one flood. We guess the looks are always going to be a matter of personal taste but we think both systems have super-cool. styling. We can’t wait to try them.

The Terra will retail at £74.99 while the Terra 2 will be £99.99.

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

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4 comments

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TheFatAndTheFurious | 13 years ago
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If these lights come with some decent cabling, them I'm interested. With my current Electron 10+5 lights, I've had two cables quit on me, requiring elastic bands to force them into a shape that maintained conduction. I wasn't considering Electron again.

What's the recharge mode on these? Any USB options?

Neil.

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John_the_Monkey | 13 years ago
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Good stuff, although it's a shame that manufacturers aren't providing the sort of road specific shaped beam the Busch & Muller do. I'd imagine these will need careful placement to avoid dazzling other road users.

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dave atkinson | 13 years ago
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cycling light legality or otherwise is a sticky subject and the legislation hasn't caught up with the advances in technology, but yes: side visibility is a basic requirement of the british standard. it's also fairly fundamental to a light's effectiveness about town, so it's good to see light manufacturers (finally) picking up on it in their costlier ranges

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alotronic | 13 years ago
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Sorry, is my rather brilliant PX Luu an 'illegal light' then because it doesn't have side-windows? Sure I use it with a flashing helmet light as well so I am not worried but I wasn't aware of any such law or legal requirement to supplement its 900 lumen with anything else...

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