Light & Motion Urban 300 Light System

The thing that comes to mind when picking Light & Motion's Urban 300 up for the first time is how small it is. Weighing in at just 114g it barely makes its presence felt at all, until it is switched on that is.

The Urban 300 is the middle light in Light and Motion's, new for this year, Urban lighting range, aimed at the road rider and commuter.

Drawing on their long experience of making lights for very harsh environments (Light And Motion started life as a dive-light manufacturer), the Urban range is impressively well made, giving an instant impression of quality and robustness. For convenience, and somewhat at odds with many of the brighter mountain biking derived lights on the market, the Urban range all have integrated light units and batteries, producing a small cigar tube format light with an LED on the front of a single-cell Lithium Ion battery.

Focussing on simplicity, the light comes with no charger, but can be charged from a computer USB socket with the cable supplied, or a standard charger for another USB charged device. As such the light is well suited to being re-charged at work for those of us slaved to a computer all day. Rated charge time to a full charge is five hours, I got it to nearly full in that time with it charging completely in just over six hours. There is a charge indicator on the rear of the unit which indicated the charge state during operation, and also on re-charging.

Running through four modes, high (the 300 lumen mode which gives the light its name), medium, low and flashing, the beam profile is clearly tuned to road riding, offering a bright central area with good 'throw', projecting a bright area well down the road, with a less bright periphery which is still quite narrow. On dark lanes, it is certainly bright enough to ride fast, and with confidence, and still see the road junctions as they approach - but you will not be distracted by detail picked out in the verge. The beam pattern is quite symmetrical, which is good for the rider, but may result in temporarily dazzling drivers on corners. The beam is too narrow for this to be a problem on straight roads though, and only really applies on corners. Personally, I am just glad to be visible.

To aid visibility from drivers approaching from the side, there are also two orange ports in the sides of the light to bleed some illumination out. As an aside, I found these bright enough to read a bike computer by, but that is probably dependent upon the geometry of the handlebars and the positions of the light relative to your computer.

Mounting of the light is very simple, with a robust rubber strap being used to hold the unit onto the bars. The mount swivels left and right on its own bracket. While this is a neat feature enabling very easy reposition of the light on different bikes, as well as making it a simple matter to remove the light for security, I found it unnecessarily awkward to adjust the strap without swivelling the light out of the way. A small complaint I know. Also, the strap needed to be very tight to avoid the light rotating around the bars when hitting a pot hole. This was quite disconcerting the first time it happened, though it was probably made significantly worse by the bars having been lubricated by a healthy coating of rain.

Run times are again tuned to the commuter, with the high setting getting a rated 2hours 12minutes (we managed to eek very slightly more, 2hrs 13), increasing to over 8 hours on low. I found the low setting perfectly decent for lit and urban roads, while the high setting was used only on really dark roads, and my short cycle-path section of the commute, meaning that one charge could last several days. For those with a longer commute though, 2hrs 12 could be a little short in the depths of winter where may be used both morning and evening.

Verdict

With an RRP of £119.99, this is not a budget light, (you can of course pay a lot more) but for the serious road cyclist intent on a winter of training no matter what, or a commuter who wants to see as well as be seen, it is worth it.