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TECH NEWS
Beam - Lezyne Deca DriveThe big road.cc lights test 2013
Time for the clocks to go back, so time for us to go to a dark place and fumble about losing screws and tripping over soccer cones to bring you beam tests of this year's crop of lights - and this year's beam test is also available in a wide screen version for maximum beam comparing fun.
The full reviews will be going up through the winter. In the meantime, however, we thought we'd share our beam testing data with you. We took all the lights that came into the office before the Big Test deadline – about 60 of them, front and rear – and put them through their paces.
The great thing about lights is that testing isn't just subjective: you can measure the beam and take directly comparable photos of what it looks like. The results are available in the big road.cc light comparator at the bottom of the page. We've kept the data from last year, too, where we haven't been sent an updated version of a light.
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. 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. We think that's the most useful measurement to directly compare. 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.
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 15cm from the centre. That gives you a good idea of the pattern of the beam. We used a smaller diameter this year for this reading because a lot of lights' beams don't really reach 50cm. So this data isn't directly comparable to the 2012 lights.
Round and round and round
Disappointingly, nearly every light we've been sent so far this year has a round beam, more or less. For riding on the road a squared-off beam has advantages. You're not wasting your battery lighting up the tree canopy, and you're less likely to dazzle oncoming traffic. Such beams are widely used in Europe, and in Germany they're the only lights legal for use on the road.
Here in the UK, however, we still seem to be stuck in a bit of an arms race, with manufacturers concentrating on increasing output, rather than tailoring lights for their intended use. Which is a shame. Maybe next year we'll see some of the manufacturers getting a bit more creative...
To get a good idea of what each 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. Last year we used a tunnel but this time we went outside, for a more realistic picture of what the beam looks like in a road setting. Each of the beam shots you can see above was taken using the same settings on the camera: 28mm (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. Melvin the mountain biker (thanks to Avon Valley Cyclery for the loan) is at 10m (the cones are 2m apart) and the car is 20m away.
Rear lights
This year we beam tested and shot the rear lghts too. The beam data follows the same format as the front lights, for the beam shots we picked the brightest flashing mode the light had, and shot the video at 1/60s, f4, ISO6400. The car is at 10m, Melvin at 5m.
There's more that you need to know about a rear light than just how bright it is from the rear: side visibility is more important than with a front light. So make sure you read the full reviews for more info on how the lights performed in the real world.
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.
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.
Latest Comments
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Hmm - cylinders of plastic filled with a paint-eating solvent, maybe?
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Seems probably even more appropriate than what I originally intended.
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But whAT aboUT thE disable d? (Foreground left - pretty faded)
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48 comments
A bit late to the party but:
http://swhs.home.xs4all.nl/fiets/tests/verlichting/index_en.html
for a true geek bike lights reviewer.
A bit late to the party but:
http://swhs.home.xs4all.nl/fiets/tests/verlichting/index_en.html
for a true geek bike lights reviewer.
I backed Blaze as well and much as it is good to back a UK startup, the light/mounting needs further work as the laser image is scarcely visible with all the vibration from the road (and this is on a suspension fork mounted handlebar on London roads).
It's a good effort but not the finished article.
I've seen a fair few lights but just have to gush over my latest acquisition... BLAZE LASERLIGHT!
Just received their first production unit after backing the kickstarter project. Amazing unit, think Apple quality, fully waterproof and a laser that projects an image of a bike onto the ground ahead of you that warns others you are coming!
Genius for my commutes in London!
Check out my review here: http://youtu.be/EDLxZwR2GI8
(Not for weight weenies!)
Echo above. Best gear test ive seen on the net - well, on a par with Tour Mag test of wheels and bike stiffness. but this is great use of power of internet.
Own the cateye volt 300. Great, would recommend for night-time club rides at 30kph.
Can anyone recommend a seller on ebay for the cree t6 light? I see there are plenty, but I'd rather go with a recomendation.
Also, where can I get the filter that shapes the beam better. i haven't been able to find that on ebay.
Cheers
I got this one recently, very impressed. This is the dual-T6 with bty indicator. http://bit.ly/15V38AQ
Had previously ordered and used the single LED, just choose a UK-based seller with a good feedback and pay using Paypal, you are covered.
The filters for the single ones can be found here: http://bit.ly/HrSokH
Personally I prefer the double, but if you have the room on the bars two of the singles with lenses will be great.
Cheers
Would be nice to see a test using the ebay special Wide Angle Lens. This fits the lamp tested as well as Magicshine, Lupine and other lamps with a 39 mm diameter lens. This spreads the beam horizontally but not vertically (once you've got the orientation right - bit of glue helps). I'm planning a dual ebay lamp setup. One standard and one wide angle. That will kick everything in this review into the long grass for around £40
please do more of these comparisons please
Great to see the Cree T6 mixing it in there. The new version is a double for around the £25-30 mark, with a battery level indicator in a low-profile body that looks much sharper. Good for 50-60kph descents on unlit roads I find. Same bty pack as the single ones. By changing to low beam for hill climbs I can get two hours of riding out of it and still be on two-thirds charge.
And the single beam ones really benefit from the horizontal beam filter - probably doubles the brightness onto the road. That filter isn't an option on the new double though.
Disappointingly, nearly every light we've been sent so far this year has a round beam, more or less.... Maybe year we'll see some of the manufacturers getting a bit more creative...
It's good to see that road.cc acknowledging that the majority of lights on test here are far from ideal as road lights, but rather than hoping for the manufacturers to do something, why not lead the debate on decent road lights? The topic of antisocially bright LED lights comes up increasingly often, and round beam patterns are always an unhappy compromise between decent illumination and not annoying other road users.
Why not splash out £80 on a Phillips Saferide, and show us the difference between a light with a road-specific beam pattern and a standard round beam - and not just from the riders point of view, but from the view of someone coming the other way.
The Phillips light is far from perfect, so it would be great to see some other manufacturers try to combine that sort of beam with better batteries and electronics, and perhaps a switchable mega-lumen round light as a "full beam" mode.
If distributors won't let you have the lights for testing purposes, why not buy a representative selection of nearly new road-specific lights on Ebay, and then put them back on Ebay once you've tested them. With luck, you might break even. Could be a strategy for testing all sorts of bike related stuff that may otherwise remain untested, perhaps.
Great test guys - one of the best reviews I've seen.
I'm using a Philips Saferide (not the best looking light but has the best beam pattern for commuting) together with a cheap Ebay Cree for dark lanes when there's no cars about. The combined beams of both lights is awesome out in the sticks, and I can easily turn off the Cree when a car is coming.
Bit of feedback about these "circular" beam patterns, from a trucker's perspective - if I've got one of you guys a couple of hundred yards behind my truck, the glare makes my nearside mirror completely blind, so please angle your lights down a little if you're mixing it with traffic.
Nice to see rear lights included. any chance comparison when they're not on comedy disco mode?
Hmmmmmm it's gonna have to be between moon & gemini for me, love the prices for what you get. I live on an island in the middle of nowhere where electricity hasn't been invented yet & while a lot of my peers run 600 quid hope beauts, I can't quite rationalise that for my lowly roadie.
Love this article, really helpful, nice one!
I would be fascinated to see how my Dinotte 400L Road Rider’s experience matches up against this crop...
Mrmo, there are more dynamo units starting to appear that have a bit more poke - the new B&M Luxos looks good. But as I say, if the beam shape is right it's really not an issue.
Mr Agreeable the one i am actually looking at is the soon to be released IQ cyo Premium which according to the bumf is 80Lux, whatever that is???
My understanding is that this light produces 80lux at 10m? it would be nice to have a comparison with the listed lights, but they are producing 500+ lux but at only a couple of metres?
@mrmo:
Lux is a measure of how brightly a surface is lit. If the light is twice as far away the light spreads over 4 times the area, so you get 1/4 the lux reading.
The Cyo Premium's 80 lux at 10m is the same as 80*25 = 2000 lux at 2m
Mrmo, unfortunately as Dave says, doing a meaningful comparison on lumens is really difficult when you have different beam shapes. I have the B&M Cyo and by the standards of my MTB lights it's pretty weedy - more like a 400 lumen light than a 900. However it puts the light in just the place where you need it, so it's more than adequate for unlit roads, plus it's visible from the side, and doesn't dazzle other users when you're on a narrow road or a shared path.
Mr Agreeable, because of the age of my current lights, they are only around the 3-400 lumen mark anyway, so enough but i wouldn't really want to go dimmer.
As said i am interested in a dynamo at some point, i have a 17mile each way commute, most of it on unlit country roads, so am charging batteries most days through the winter. Just being able to grab the bike and ride without worrying about the batteries is attractive.
Another Ebay special user here - the one you've got has a smooth mirror which is why it gets the bright central spot. But on-road, that's exactly what you want so as not to dazzle everyone else.
You can also get 'orange peel' ones which spread the beam better and are more for off-road use.
Great test though - best on the Net I reckon.
Any chance of adding the new 2x Cree light at some point?
I've got an eBay special and it's great on the unlit country roads round where I live. You might be able to rig two to a single battery but the batteries are not so large anyway. I keep mine in a Monki Mono, which would easily fit two batteries and other stuff. At less than £20 for 1200 lumens these lights are well worth a look.
"Ebay special" cree magic shine whatever's, come with x4 3.7v 18650 cells (two sets wired in series, wired together in parallel). cree led's need 7.8v to work. minimum batteries to power the LED would be two wired in series.
I have the ebay special. The battery lasted 12 months of commuting and cost £7 to replace. The only issue is that on flash it makes me feel sick as more like a strobe light - cars veer off the road on full beam so you have to aim it quite low. I haven't bothered trying to waterproof it and its been solid throughout Manchester's marvelous climate.
Excellent - this is what the internet was made for! You say you tested rear lights too - do you have similar fancy wizardry imagery or am I being dumb and not seeing it?
rears are at the bottom of the 2013 lights.
would have been nice to see them from a distance, the reverse of the front lights as they are to be seen rather than to see!
yeah, we did try that but it wasn't ideal either. maybe we need to do a combination of both next time.
That's a shame. I wouldn't commute without fibre flares (and exposure flare) but the test makes them look like they aren't on.
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