Exposure Strada 13 RS review – beautifully made with excellent auto-dimming technology

The Exposure Strada 13 RS has seen some major improvements over previous versions and it’s a very good light for road riding. The build quality is as good as it gets and the clever AKTiv dimming works really well. If you have sufficiently deep pockets, it’s a great investment.

Exposure has been making lights for a long time, and the Strada has been in the range for over a decade. At £355, the RS is the cheaper of two versions, with a claimed 1,600 lumen output. The Strada 13 SB offers up to 2,000 lumens for £415.

Like all Exposure lights, it’s a beautifully-made thing, with a machined aluminium body with cooling fins, the lens on the front and the controls at the rear. The light is IP67-rated, so it’s chuck-it-in-a-stream waterproof, and the build quality is second to none.

The light is controlled by a single metal button which gives access to a range of modes. There are seven different programs, each with two or three modes, and you can pick the one that works best for your riding: how much light you need, and how long you want it to last.

One of the big changes this year is the new, bigger OLED screen which improves usability a lot. Before you had to squint at the tiny laser-etched table on the bottom of the light to see what program had what modes. Now all the information is displayed on the screen, so it’s much simpler.

Switching between modes within a program is just a case of hitting the button, and a double press will bring up the flashing mode.

When the light is on, the OLED screen displays remaining run-time in the mode you’re in, and if you have the light mounted on top of your bars that’s pretty easy to see. It also has a traffic light fuel gauge system that uses green/amber/red and static/flashing to instantly tell you your battery state in 15% increments. This means that even if you’re not looking at the numbers you can always tell how the battery is doing.

At maximum output, the battery life is around 2hrs, and there are plenty of lower power modes that’ll see you through a whole night of riding. The lowest power mode gives you a day and a half of illumination. You can even pair the light via ANT+ to your GPS to display the battery state there.

Exposure has (finally) moved over to USB-C, so you no longer need a proprietary charger, and you can also use the Strada as a powerbank if you need to redistribute some juice in an emergency – if you’ve remembered the right lead.

Exposure has updated its mount to include an articulated GoPro joint. That means it’s further out in front of your bars, and you can pull it apart and use one half to mount the light under your out-front mount.

Both of those things are nominally a plus, but overall I don’t like the change. One of the best things about Exposure lights has always been that tightly-machined, rock-solid mount: set it up once, never worry about it again. The joint adds complexity and a way for the light to move, and I just don’t think it’s an improvement.

The beam of the Strada is decent enough, but I think it could be better. It uses two LEDs: one is a spot, and the other has a lens that creates a flatter, wider beam. Together the coverage is really good, and I had no issues riding on unlit lanes in the pitch dark, especially on full whack. But it’s more diffuse than it needs to be and could be tightened up some to give a bit more throw. It’s more of an issue on the lower ‘ride all night’ modes, which could do with just a bit more penetration.

The beam isn’t symmetrical about the x-axis, and in fact I’d argue it’s probably better upside down. There’s some spill out of the top of the beam and the top of the flattened section is wider, which the other way up means more light on the road.

One thing that does deserve a big slap on the back though is the AKTiv technology, which is excellent. The light has two sensors on the front that pick up oncoming cars and dim the spot beam. They also pick up bike lights and street lamps very well too, in my experience.

This is good on two counts: you don’t dazzle oncoming traffic, but you also don’t waste your battery pumping light into bits of your ride that are already well-lit.

I was worried that a false positive might leave me with not enough light on some country lane, but this never happened, and it’s a setting I’d definitely leave on all the time. It doesn’t really have a downside.

At £355, this is a significant investment, and you can buy very good 1,600 lumen lights for a third of that.

The Ravemen K1800 (1,800 lumens) is £99.99 for example, while its even brighter sibling, the PR2400, is £199.99.

There’s no doubt the Strada is a lovely thing though, designed and built in the UK with a three-year warranty and really good customer service.

Exposure is always iterating its lights and I think the changes made to this one – the better screen, the AKTiv tech, the USB-C charge port – have made it a significantly better light than the Mk12.

I don’t think it’s perfect. The beam could be improved for road riding, and I’m not a fan of the changes to the mount, but if you want a high quality, UK-engineered light that’ll last, this latest version of the Strada RS deserves your consideration.

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