Knog Gekko lights front and rear - White

The Knog Gekkos are good strap on lights. They're not super bright and you wouldn't want to go cross country with them or out beyond where the sky glows orange, but they're ideal as a backup or rescue light around town. The styling is retro chic, if you can still call things retro: perhaps post modern is more appropriate, like the bike light equivalent of the NYC Guggenheim.

It’s certainly not a case of form over function as the lights work efficiently and will not let you down in a pinch. Constructed of water resistant silicon, the Gekkos are extremely durable. They feel like a resilient Fisher Price toy, and will certainly take some abuse. The built-in stretchy silicon mounting strap can fix the light to bars, head tubes, forks and seatposts with equal ease although they don't hug skinny stays very well.

The sweeping, rounded or bulbous lines (depending on your fancy) look great on the uncluttered bar of a fixie or single speed. Bear in mind that if you're running drops the lights are almost totally obscured from the side by the drop sections, which isn't good for side visibility.

Powered by 2 AAA batteries the LEDs are visible from 600m and have 3 flashing functions as well as constant beam. They have a claimed run time of 30 hours on constant beam and up to 220 hours in the flashing modes, our experience of Knog's claimed constant run times with the Skinks was not great, the Gekkos have held up fine so far and are anyway if used as a back up emergency light not going to get that much action in constant mode anyway. We tested the white ones which give better all-round visibility by dint of the whole thing glowing, but they're also available in blue, green, red, grey and black.

Verdict

Not a Chameleon for multiple purposes, but certainly a useful little light.