rechargeable cycle light

Lezyne's new family of lights are very pretty and our Shaun rated the Super Drive when he reviewed it, so how does it's little brother, the Mini Drive, stack up?

The LED4Si is Lumicycle's flagship road light. It's not as powerful as Lumicycle's MTB-oriented XPG systems – a claimed 1120 lumens against 1500 for the XPG – but the 4Si is designed for the road and has a tighter beam, so it can get away with less total output and get better battery life. And 1120 lumens is still a lot...

Hope's Vision One is a self-contained wire-free light with a claimed output of 240 lumens from a single, large LED emitter. Hope's reputation is built on CNC machining things out of lumps of aluminium, so it's no surprise that that's exactly how the Vision One is made. It's rather nicely done, too, with a ridged outer surface, laser-etched logos and a choice of colours. It's quite large but not all that heavy, with a claimed weight of 110g (not including batteries).

The Moon X-Power 500 looks neat and compact and feels pleasingly chunky yet light.

Mounting the light was easy, the mount is easy to adjust and fitted very solidly to the bars, and stayed firmly in position without having to be cranked up stupidly tight. It has some horizontal adjustment too, so you can point the beam towards the verge and make sure you're not going to dazzle any oncoming traffic. The release switch is easy to locate and operate, even in gloves.

Form definitely meets function with the Moon Mask 5.0 LED, which claims to delivers a whopping 70 lumens in the highest of five modes-just enough for tackling well surfaced lanes at 20 odd mph and a real boon for roadside repair, pannier rummaging and map reading. It certainly gave a punch performance in our beam test and the stats seem to bear that out too.

The Exposure Strada is a serious light for road riding, putting in a strong performance across the board. It's a serious price too, but one that's justified if you do a lot of road riding out beyond the street lights.

Niterider's MiNewt 600 cordless is a compact and elegant light that packs plenty of punch, and is small enough - just - to go on your helmet as well as your bars. With good build quality and a super-simple clamp, it's a very good option for all your riding, so long as you don't want to pull an all-nighter.

RSP, Raleigh's product arm, make some very decent lights. Star among them is the excellent Asteri 3 so we were hoping the Asteri 6 would be twice as good. It's not though: the build quality lets it down a bit but the major problem is the beam pattern.

Bright, brash and now USB chargeable, Knog’s Boomer is certainly bright enough for city and suburban streets and dark lanes with reliable output and charge-times- it even survived five minutes continuous onslaught from the garden hose but so do many others and the silicone bracket is neither secure, nor particularly versatile when it comes to mounting the rear version tested here – we've also included technical details of the front though because USB recharger apart it is identical to the Boomer front light we've already tested.

This Onethelight 900-lumen headlight from Spokeshirts is a very bright light, and not an expensive one either. If you're just looking for bangs per buck, then it should be up there on your wishlist. It's not perfect and there are little niggles, but overall it's a good performer for the money.