Cateye Volt 1300 RC Front Light

The new Cateye Volt 1300 is a pretty complete package, offering plenty of light balanced with decent burn times, although it is a little pricier than some of its closest rivals.

• Pros: A couple of decent modes to cover all road riding, lengthy run-times
• Cons: Cheaper competitors are available, a bit weighty

The Volt 1300 replaces the previous 1200 model, and is the little brother of the Volt 1700.

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As the name suggests, it pumps out 1300 lumens on full, which is perfect for jaunts out into the pitch black countryside, even when tackling twisty technical descents.

The beam offers quite a wide spread (as you can see on our beam comparison engine), which helps to pick up verges on both sides of the road to give you a decent level of perspective of your surroundings.

The central spot is bright, and if you get the angle right you'll get an excellent beam of useful light stretching out in front of you, without upsetting the birds trying to sleep in the trees overhead.

Using this high mode for the duration of your ride will see you being able to stay out and play for a good couple of hours according to Cateye, and that is what I achieved: just over, actually, at 2hrs 10mins after it had had a few charges.

The middle mode gives you 500 lumens for 5 hours of battery life and this is plenty for riding on main roads or even in the lanes on the flat at a steady rhythm.

Low gives you 120 lumens – not really enough for much in the dark, as it is a little bit on the dim side, but ideal if you're passing through street-lit urban areas so that you can stretch out the burn-times.

Other than that, there are two flashing modes, starting with the rather impressively named Daytime Hyper Contact!

Both LEDs remain lit at 120 lumens but you get a flash at the full 1300 lumens. I used it a lot on sunny rides, especially if I was on busy roads with many roundabouts and junctions and when in town filtering. The bright flash really makes you stand out against the background of all the solid state LED daytime-running lights on cars.

You get a traditional flash mode as well, which puts out 200 lumens. This is ideal when in urban traffic in the dark, when the Daytime mode would be just too inconsiderate.

Battery life for these is 12hrs and 150hrs respectively.

Operation/mode selection

Mode selection and turning the light on and off is controlled by one central button. It's raised enough to make it easy to find with gloves on.

I'm not a fan of having to scroll through flashing modes to get back to the solid state beams, as you find on some lights, but the Volt has a neat solution to this. No matter what mode you are in, if you double click the button you'll automatically jump to high; press the button and you'll return to the previous mode you were in.

Spending most of the time riding in the 500-lumen mode, I could easily switch to high mode when things became technical or I headed into the lanes. Using this trick I could easily toggle between two modes without having to scroll through the daytime flash mode – not something you want to be doing in the pitch black.

Charging

The button is also used as a battery life display when running and charging. When riding, if the battery is above 50% it'll remain unlit; when 50% is reached it lights up amber, red at 30% and flashing red at 15%.

Depending on how you charge it, you can achieve a full battery between 4.5hrs and 15hrs. Using a phone charger plugged into a wall socket was the quickest for me: it showed green for 100% charge after 4hrs 50mins.

The battery isn't only rechargeable it's also replaceable, so to extend run-times you could carry an extra battery and swap them over mid-ride.

Bracket

Cateye has been using the same thumbwheel-based bracket design for years now, and while I prefer something bolted together and clamped around the bar, like Exposure's solution, this one did stay in place on even the roughest of roads.

The light is easy to fit to and remove from the bracket, so should you need to park your bike up outside the café or at work it isn't a faff to take the light with you.

Weatherproofing

Cateye doesn't list an IP rating to indicate its ability to shrug off the elements, so I put the Volt through the usual tests. Riding in the wind and rain saw it get a bit of a hammering from heavy downpours and being splashed in road spray from passing lorries and all was fine. Just to make sure, though, I also blasted it with the power shower at home and, as with many lights, as long as the cover is closed over the charging port there won't be any issues.

Value could be the only chink in the Volt's armour: it is a little bit pricier than some close rivals.

Lezyne is currently producing some very decent lights. We've tested the Macro Drive 1100XL at £70 and there is also the Super Drive 1500XXL, which costs £110.

I do prefer the Cateye's mounting bracket, and the choice of outputs to toggle between on Lezyne's Race mode irritates me, as you'll find out when my full review of the Lite Drive 800XL is published.

> Buyer's Guide: The best 2018 front lights for cycling

We've recently tested the Blackburn DayBlazer 1100, which costs £84.99. True, it's not as powerful, but it is machined from aluminium alloy and offers decent burn times and outputs. It is nearly half the weight too.

Overall, though, other than the price there is very little to dislike about the Cateye; if you can find it discounted anywhere, it quickly becomes a bargain.

Verdict

A very complete package for training or commuting, with plenty of power and good run-times