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The big road.cc lights test 2012

we've been in a tunnel with 41 of this year's front lights and the results are in.....

Well, here we are again. Waking up in the dark, riding home in the dark... it's lights time.

We've been busy getting some of this year's crop and the reviews will be going up through the winter. In the meantime, however, we thought we'd share our beam testing data with you so you have something to be going on with. We took all the lights that came into the office before the Big Test deadline – about 40 of them – and put them through their paces. The great thing about lights is that it isn't just subjective: you can measure the beam and take directly comparable photos of what it looks like, so we did. The results are available in the big road.cc light comparator at the bottom of the page. Rear lights are coming soon.

What did you do?

We've collected lots of beam data so you can compare and contrast the different lights. Light manufacturers use a number of different metrics to describe light output. Top of the pile right now is lumens, which is a measure of the total output of the light across the whole beam. Some cheaper lights use candlepower, candela or lux, which are measurements of the brightest part of the beam at a set distance. We've used lux here, but measured at a number of points across the width of the beam. That gives an indication of the brightness of the beam at the centre, the amount of peripheral light and the throw of the beam. Specifically, we measured the lux value of the beam at two metres distance, in 10cm increments from the centre of the beam to 1m from the centre, giving eleven readings.

This year we've also included data on the shape of the beam. Putting the brightest part of the beam at the centre, we measured the output at thirty-degree increments around the beam, at a distance of 50cm from the centre. That gives you a good idea of the pattern of the beam; most are more or less round, but some have more interesting characteristics.

To get a good idea of what the beam looks like, we set up a bike on a rig so that we could photograph the beams of all the different lights in a comparable way. We used a tunnel this year, because it has the advantage of always being dry and pitch black down there which means that we should be able to more easily add to this test when more lights come in; last year we found with outdoor shots that replicating the rig wasn't easy, as different conditions above gorund mean differing levels of ambient light and reflection from surfaces, even in the same spot. Each of the beam shots you can see above was taken using the same settings on the camera. Specifically, they're all shot from directly above the saddle, using a 28mm lens on a Canon EOS1100D (effective 45mm), shooting for 2s at f22 on ISO3200. If you fancy doing some of your own. So as much as they can be, they're directly comparable to one another. If one looks brighter than another, that's because it was. The two reflective jackets are at a distance of 15m and 30m, respectively, from the light. The reflective strips down the centre are at 2.8m intervals.

Is that it, then?

No, of course not. You can look through out Buyer's Guide for more information on what kind of lights will suit your riding. A super-bright beam isn't much use if the light ends up in a hedge after the first pothole, or fizzles out when it starts raining. We'll be subjecting all the lights to the rigours of the road.cc testing process and when we're happy that we've thrashed them they'll each get a full review. We'll include the comparison tool in each review too. In the meantime, we thought you'd like to see how they fared.

A word about logs

The graph displaying the beam data uses a logarithmic scale to display the output of the lights. If you understand or care about such things, here's why:

Firstly, light beams follow an inverse square law regarding the strength of the light at increasing distance, because they're illuminating a two-dimensional plane. So at twice the distance, the light beam is spread over four times the area. Consequently, a light that is measured as twice as bright at its centre won't let you see twice as far. The logarithmic scale produces a more realistic comparison because of this.

Secondly, the variations in the amount of peripheral light, though much smaller than the variations in the centre, make a big difference to how much peripheral vision you get. The logarithmic scale amplifies these differences relative to the centre of the beam, so it's easier to see which unit is putting out more light at the sides.

A word about the non-circular beam patterns

Some of the lights on test don't have a uniform circular beam pattern, with more light along the centre of the beam. Because of this, the beam values on the long graph are a bit inflated because there's more light concentrated in the axis we're measuring, and less illuminating the tree canopy. It doesn't skew the data hugely though, and the beam graph in conjunction with the beam shot  and beam shape should give you the whole story.

The comparator is below. Have fun!

If you have a nice big screen you can click here for the widescreen version (1400x1000px)

Dave is a founding father of road.cc, having previously worked on Cycling Plus and What Mountain Bike magazines back in the day. He also writes about e-bikes for our sister publication ebiketips. He's won three mountain bike bog snorkelling World Championships, and races at the back of the third cats.

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52 comments

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ALIHISGREAT replied to kie7077 | 11 years ago
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kie7077 wrote:

I just got a £30 ebay light, claims 1800 Lumens (approx 18w), it might not be quite that bright but it's more than enough to cycle 20mph through a dark unlit park.

It withstood a 45min downpour in which I got soaked even with waterproof jacket.

'CREE XML XM-L T6 1800 LM LED' It comes with a recharger, the claimed battery length is 3hours on full. The flashing mode is strobe only, which you'd have to be a dangerous pest to use (doh). Takes several hours to charge.

Why pay £100 - £200 when you can get a good light for £30.

The ebay no' is 140744146377 and it's a UK seller.

Come on road.cc review this one, it's a bargain.

Looks interesting.. what's the build quality like?

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kie7077 replied to ALIHISGREAT | 11 years ago
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what's the build quality like?

Seems very solid, attaches to the bike nicely, the battery pack attaches to the bike with Velcro easily and water didn't bother the battery to light connection.

Only been using it a couple of weeks though.

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brandobiker replied to kie7077 | 11 years ago
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kie7077 wrote:

I just got a £30 ebay light, claims 1800 Lumens (approx 18w), it might not be quite that bright but it's more than enough to cycle 20mph through a dark unlit park.

It withstood a 45min downpour in which I got soaked even with waterproof jacket.

'CREE XML XM-L T6 1800 LM LED' It comes with a recharger, the claimed battery length is 3hours on full. The flashing mode is strobe only, which you'd have to be a dangerous pest to use (doh). Takes several hours to charge.

Why pay £100 - £200 when you can get a good light for £30.

The ebay no' is 140744146377 and it's a UK seller.

Come on road.cc review this one, it's a bargain.

I am a Sustrans Ranger and a few of us have this light . It is easily as good if not better than those 2 shown.  16

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Karbon Kev | 11 years ago
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great test! well done road.cc

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jackh | 11 years ago
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Congratulations on this, I can see a lot of effort when into it and probably the best light test I've ever seen on the web.

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sorebones | 11 years ago
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Great work chaps.

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roxycoxy | 11 years ago
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Have you got the Lezyne Power drive xl and the Super drive xl mixed up?
Surely the Super drive should be brighter than the Power drive.

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byke.com.au replied to roxycoxy | 11 years ago
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roxycoxy wrote:

Have you got the Lezyne Power drive xl and the Super drive xl mixed up?
Surely the Super drive should be brighter than the Power drive.

+1

Be interesting to know whether there's been an error at Road.cc, the difference between the Super XL & Power XL is just an artificial distinction of Lezyne's marketing department, or whether it's just a bit of a lottery from unit to unit.

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dave atkinson replied to byke.com.au | 11 years ago
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byke.com.au wrote:

Be interesting to know whether there's been an error at Road.cc, the difference between the Super XL & Power XL is just an artificial distinction of Lezyne's marketing department, or whether it's just a bit of a lottery from unit to unit.

we think we might just have a faulty one, lezyne are sending us another for comparison.

it's possible that we had it on the wrong setting but the beam shot and the beam graph are both lower than the power drive, and they were done separately, it's unlikely that we got it wrong both times on that one light.

certainly the super drive is *meant* to be brighter so we'll see what gives when we get another sample

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byke.com.au replied to dave atkinson | 11 years ago
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Dave Atkinson wrote:

we think we might just have a faulty one, lezyne are sending us another for comparison.

Excellent. I've got the Super Drive (ordered it two days before the XL's were announced - arggggh!) and I'm very happy with it. Possibly not quite as bright as my 3yo Magic Shine, but much more practical, so I actually use it.

Quote:

it's possible that we had it on the wrong setting but the beam shot and the beam graph are both lower than the power drive, and they were done separately, it's unlikely that we got it wrong both times on that one light.

Seems unlikely then - at least on my version the brightest setting is the first setting in the cycle.

Of course now every road.cc-reading Lezyne owner is going to be worrying that they got a dud too - me included!

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alronald | 11 years ago
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Great piece of work!

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therealsmallboy | 11 years ago
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This is awesome. Possibly the easiest to understand light test ever.

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NeilG83 | 11 years ago
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Excellent test. Any information about the best rear lights?

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dave atkinson replied to NeilG83 | 11 years ago
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NeilG83 wrote:

Excellent test. Any information about the best rear lights?

rear lights will be along presently...

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rggfddne | 11 years ago
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top class report  1 I'll definitely use this next time I'm looking for lights. Well done.

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adriank999 | 11 years ago
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Where's the front light from Poundland costing just one pound?

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Bob's Bikes replied to adriank999 | 11 years ago
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adriank999 wrote:

Where's the front light from Poundland costing just one pound?

It's called the Electron micro 5 and it retails at a certain bike shop chain starting with E, for £17.99  19

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Bez | 11 years ago
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An impressive test and presentation of the results (though I find the "beam shape" plots a little easy to misinterpret). Very good indeed.

May I (having checked the lights I've used and some equivalents to other lights I've used) raise one significant issue with it?

The fact that it's set in a narrow tunnel with pale walls distorts the results for scattergun-beamed lights, mainly in that it heavily favours them over those with a proper road beam. In a tunnel the light from the former is being bounced back into view when it would otherwise be going into the sky or drivers' eyes. So scatterguns not only look more impressive because they illuminate the walls and roof, but even the light they cast on the ground is being flattered by reflected light.

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dave atkinson replied to Bez | 11 years ago
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Bez wrote:

The fact that it's set in a narrow tunnel with pale walls distorts the results for scattergun-beamed lights, mainly in that it heavily favours them over those with a proper road beam. In a tunnel the light from the former is being bounced back into view when it would otherwise be going into the sky or drivers' eyes. So scatterguns not only look more impressive because they illuminate the walls and roof, but even the light they cast on the ground is being flattered by reflected light.

it's a valid point. we chose a tunnel because the environment is easy to control. ideally we would have had a blacked-out room the size of a football pitch but we couldn't find one. maybe next year  1

we did consider the reflected light issue. if you look at a strong road beam light (say the supernova airstream), there's plenty of light on the walls and the floor, which is a similar colour to the walls. but there's no light at all on the ceiling. if the reflecting of the light was a big issue you'd expect to see some light reflected on the ceiling; you don't. That's not to say there isn't some light pollution from reflection - there is - but i don't think it heavily favours the round-beamed lights.

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Marauder | 11 years ago
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I have to applaud you Dave for a concise and easily understood comparison of lots of different lights.  41

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seabass89 | 11 years ago
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How come a light like Magicshine costing 80£ can crush most other lights costing as much as 200£? O.o

IS somebody ripping somebody off?

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sparrow_h | 11 years ago
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This is great! A good addition would also be a picture of what the bike looks like with one of these on it from 100m and 30m, ie. how much visibility you get, especially from the cheaper lights.

Horses for courses, on dark country roads you need to see where you are going and be visible from as far as possible; whereas for urban commuting often you dont need a little sun mounted on your bars, too-bright or badly aimed lights can be a bit of a menace to others.

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