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TECH NEWS
Strada mk 6 ppl choice.jpgroad.cc People's Choice: Your favourite front lights revealed
USB recharging FTW — that's the clear message from your responses to our recent call for your favourite front lights. While a few rear lights with old-fashioned batteries made the list of rear flashers, the extra battery drain of a white light makes the economy of rechargeables a must.
Without further ado, the envelope, please.
1 Exposure Strada — £241.99 (23%)
Road riders who need serious light love the Strada for both the sheer amount of light it puts out and for its friendliness to other road users. The the beam is shaped so it doesn't dazzle oncoming traffic. The votes were mostly for the Mk 5, but it's just been replaced by the Mk6 which has more output and an LED display to show remaining battery charge
Like other Exposure lights it's an all-in-one unit with battery and emitters in one shell.
Read our review of the Exposure Strada
2 Cateye Volt 300 — £34.99 (10%)
The most popular small light in the survey, the Volt 300 puts out a claimed 300 lumen beam, powered by a swappable battery so you can carry a spare for long rides.
Read our review of the Cateye Volt 300
Find a Cateye dealer
3 Cateye Volt 800 — £79.99 (8%)
The Volt 300's big brother shares its interchangeable battery feature but outs out a lot more light — a claimed 800 lumen.
Find a Cateye dealer
3 Radial Pharos 3-Watt USB Rechargeable — £19.99 (8%)
The cheapest light in the top five plugs straight into a USB port or charger so you don't have to dig through your desk drawer for a cable. (I can see three of the damn things from where I'm sitting though — where do they all come from?). It's very simple and tidy; just the thing for a well-lit commute or as an emergency spare.
3 Cateye Volt 1200 — £109.99 (8%)
The Volt 1200 goes up another step, putting out a claimed 1200 lumen from a pair of emitters. Cateye says it'll run for 17.5 hours in low mode, which should be enough for a week's commuting.
Read our review of the Cateye Volt 1200
Find a Cateye dealer
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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17 comments
All shite as far as a proper beam pattern for road riding goes.
Exposure lights continue to be the benchmark as far as I'm concerned. Excellent quality, and the service department is quick to respond and very helpful. Yes they're not cheap, but never has the addage 'you get what you pay for' been more apt.
Unfortunately they're all lights that also do an extremely good job of dazzling anyone who looks at them - motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.
Modern bicycle lights are becoming so powerful that legislation is needed to ensure they're correctly designed, so that their output is focussed on the road and nowhere else.
Which is all well and good, but you need also to ensure that the user adjusts it correctly when fitted on the bike. I overtook a young woman on a bike the other day and noticed that her front light was in fact lighting up a point around 20-25 feet above the ground on an upcoming tree!
No road vehicle has a light that is "focussed on the road and nowhere else". The German bike lights come close to this of course, and are great in traffic (however defined ). But their build quality is not great, and the additional light provided by a Strada is (for me) very useful on unlit roads, especially in the wet.
I'm pretty sure we already have legislation that makes it illegal to dazzle anyone on the roads.
The problem is enforcement, something all too obvious once you notice the recent fashion amongst some drivers to use their front foglights all the time.
Yes agreed about enforcement. But front fogs on cars. There's no actual problem for anyone with that. They are low and designed to put light on the road and not light up the fog.
Drivers with misadjusted headlights that dazzle people or missing lights or rear fogs, don't indicate, don't turn off full beams. Those are problems but front fogs? Who does that hurt/ what's the problem there?
I'll let the Highway Code explain for you:
Exposure are excellent. My 2009 Enduro Maxx D failed last week and I sent it in. Was going to cost £56 for the circuit board to replaced. I opted to get another light (Toro) at a discount plus an allowance against my old light. Posted it Thursday and a new one arrived 10 minutes ago.
Often use mine in conjunction with a red eye rear.
Any issue over the years has been sorted quickly and usually free even if just out of warranty.
My Exposure Max D Mk4s are coming up for 3 years old now and they still function fine. The light output is simply awesome, even though there are newer more powerful variants, night becomes day and NO ONE pulls out on me at all, not even so much as a front bumper takes a sniff at crossing my path. They are far better than my motorbike and car headlights on full beam! Buy cheap buy twice, three or even four times for the cost of good kit.
A bit like bike locks, people baulk at shelling out big bucks on a decent bike light, but from someone who commutes on dark (quiet(ish)) lanes, it's an investment worth making. They usually last way longer than the cheap ones anyway
"USB recharging FTW — that's the clear message" No. What's FTW? Plain English please.
Hey Grandad, double click any letter in FTW to highlight the whole text, right click and select the option Search Google for "FTW". LEarn something new for the day. It really is that easy.
Wow - does anyone else remember when online forums existed as "discussion groups", where you could, well, discuss, and ask questions from real people and get opinions and half-remembered answers rather than just going straight to a search engine?
When asking the question was a part of the conversation?
And when the use of acronyms where the presumption was made that everyone who was anyone knew what you meant, was frowned upon, because it meant you were being a bit of an a r s e ?
No - of course you don't, robertoegg, because you sound like you're about twelve years old.
I've looked at the Strada in a shop and it is indeed beautifully made. However I've found that heavier, all-in-one lights tend to go out of alignment when bashing over rough roads. So for serious lumens I prefer a separate battery pack. But what really attracts me about the Strada is the satellite switch. It's something I wish was featured more widely on high-end lights.
ive been using a exposure light since 2009 ridden on 24 hr mtb races , 600km audax's numerous winters on and off road been absolutely brilliant rock solid on the handlebar and definitely doesn't move about. Did have an issue with the light sent it back sorted really quickly was also out of warrenty but they still sorted it with no charge. Was a very good purchase and after my experience recommend them...
The mounting bracket is very secure and an ingenious design. It doesn't budge a mm over rough roads. However I found that satellite switch doesn't work when there is a sniff of moisture in the air. I have the mk4 strada and I find it does dazzle people. I know they have done more work on the beam pattern for the mk 6 but it looks to me like it's more of a round beam now than a horizontal pattern. Thats the opposite of what they needed to do.