Lucas KOTR F500 Sport

Today, Lucas are perhaps better known in the field of automotive lighting than that of cycling, but they launched their first King of the Road bike light back in 1878, so they're not exactly newcomers to the market. Their current range is quite extensive, stretching from cheap flashers to stonking 3000 lumen mountain bike light systems. The KOTR F500 Sport is a well-made torch-style front light that provides reasonable illumination but has little to really make it stand out from the competition.

With its simple cylindrical shape, this could at first be mistaken for a torch rather than cycling-specific lighting. It uses a single high-output LED powered by a USB-rechargeable battery, and a wide-angle lens. This provides a fairly broad field of view at night time but also means that the penetration into the dark is not as strong as you'd hope for the claimed 500 lumens output.

The design is very similar, but not identical, to the Lezyne Macro Drive. Output here is higher than the Lezyne's 350 lumens, with a lot of the extra light being emitted in directions other than straight down the road.

The sides of the lens are scalloped, allowing some extra light out and enhancing side-visibility. These are reasonably effective, although I suspect that the wraparound lens used on the Lucas City F500 light (which we're also testing – watch this space) is better in this respect. Despite the similarity in name and price, the City F500 is quite a different beast with a plastic body and an unusual USB power-bank feature for charging other devices. Our beam comparison engine shows that the City version has a more focused beam whereas this Sport version spreads its lumens around more widely.

The machined aluminium body gives the F500 Sport a chunky, tough feel. Access to the micro-USB charging port is by unscrewing the well-made metal cap from the rear. There's a rubber o-ring on the cap to provide a seal against the elements; a little care is needed to make sure that this doesn't get lost as without it I suspect that water would make its way in.

As we've noted before, a good light is nothing without a decent mount. Here Lucas have gone for a simple plastic clip which is held on the bars with a chunky rubber o-ring. A couple of sizes of o-ring are provided, allowing for old-school or the now-standard oversize handlebars, but there's no facility to adjust for a tighter fit if you find the light doesn't stay put.

The plastic clip is pretty easy to install on the handlebar and once there can be left in place. Swapping from one bike to another is a very quick job. The light itself is tightly gripped by the clip; the challenge is to find the fore-aft position which locates its centre of gravity over the bar. If not then a bumpy road can result in it moving up or down unexpectedly. Putting some grippy rubber between the plastic clip and the bar can help prevent this – it would have been nice if this could have been integrated into the clip. Stuart noted exactly the same issue when he reviewed the Lezyne Macro Drive. For a £70 light, the basic plastic clip and o-rings left me underwhelmed.

No dedicated helmet mount is included, but the standard clip can also be used for this. I found that a couple of zip ties did a good job, and happily the vents in my helmet were positioned such that the light was angled appropriately. This also fixes the light low down and close to the surface of the helmet, so its weight didn't pull the helmet around, something that can be annoying when a light is mounted further off the top of the helmet.

There are four modes; high, medium, low and flash. Differentiation between the three constant modes is less than on some lights; with high and medium in particular being hard to tell apart. The flash is a simple on-off pattern, repeated rapidly. I found it was pretty effective used as a daylight running light in traffic; more drivers saw me and gave me space than when using a constant beam. For night-time use the flashing is pretty hard on the eyes but can be used on a lit street when you need to make sure the traffic sees you coming.

The light is switched on with a quick press of the textured button on top, also used to scroll through the modes, and held down to switch it off. The button is reasonably stiff, but I'd still be concerned that it could be vulnerable to accidental switching on if in a bag as there's no lock mode. Initial mode when powered on is always high; it doesn't remember what you were using last time.

As is common, the power button doubles as a battery level indicator. There are only two levels; blue for ok and red for low. When the charge level drops to low, the main beam also flashes a couple of times quickly to warn you. This is useful if you've mounted the light on your helmet where you wouldn't see the red warning LED. Once at this low-power charge level, there's still enough juice in the tank for about 40 minutes on full power, with longer available on lower levels, so you shouldn't get caught out.

Overall runtime is 2.5 hours on full power, which is about what we'd expect for this output and the overall size of the light. Lower power modes give increased run-time, up to a claimed 25 hours on flash mode. There isn't the facility to switch batteries, so if you're riding a long way you'll need to use a lower power level or take a backup light.

The overall output is ample for the purposes of being seen by other road users but – at this price and with this number of claimed lumens – is not hugely impressive for seeing by. Other lights, even some claiming a lower output, reach further down the road, and the wide spread of light here means that it can be tricky to find that sweet spot where the road is well lit without annoyingly dazzling others. There's a slightly blue hue to the light that I only noticed when comparing beams to other, whiter lights.

There's more than enough light for city use, and for use further afield at a sedate pace, but this wouldn't be my first choice in this price range if I was going to be going quickly in the dark. As mentioned above, Lucas offer this F500 Sport and the F500 City at the same price – the names suggest that for commuting the City may be the better bet. I liked the well-made metal body of the F500 Sport, and the battery life is respectable given the overall size, but in most other respects it is not up there with the very best lights on the market today.

Verdict

Solid and well made; not a bad compact front light, but there are better ones out there at this price

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