Look Geo City Vision pedals review – eye-catching pedals with lights unfortunately don’t comply with UK road regulations

The Look Geo City Vision pedals are designed to make you easier to spot at night with a bright light emitted from each pedal. They certainly are eye-catching and the price reduction from the first generation is very welcome, but they’re technically not compliant with UK law for use on the road.

Look cites a study at Clemson University that showed that illumination on a bike was more eye-catching when following a pedaling motion. The movement apparently makes it easier for drivers to see and correctly categorise a cyclist, compared to a light fixed to a seatpost, for example.

Look’s made a number of pedals with lights and we’ve tested several here in the past. The first generation had light units front and rear that emitted an orange flash which Emma found to be quite eye-catching at night-time. They were pricey at £115, though, and not much of the light showed when viewed from the side.

Look’s gone away and designed a second generation, which we have here, extending the illumination so that it wraps around the outside edge of the pedal. It is very visible when viewed from the side or the back. Or indeed the front – and that’s where it’s likely to be an issue for UK cyclists aiming to conform with the relevant legislation.

Road regs

Because unlike the first generation, the light emitted here is red, not orange (despite the lens appearing orange when the light isn’t on) and Regulation 11(1) of the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989 says: “No vehicle shall be fitted with a lamp which is capable of showing a red light to the front”.

Unlike the rather clever Redshift illuminated pedals, the light is only one colour and that’s red.

2026 Look Geo City Vision pedals – light unit (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)

It’s worth pointing out that the same legislation also requires all pedals to be fitted with amber reflectors, and you don’t see many of them on bikes running clipless pedals. You might therefore surmise that the police have other enforcement priorities.

Even if you’re uninterested in the law around these things though, it’s clearly less than ideal having red lights visible from the front, as it could lead to confusion in other road-users about which direction you’re heading. It’s a real pity that Look hasn’t kept orange LEDs, as in the first iteration.

In use

I fitted these pedals to my Gen 1 Tern GSD cargo bike. I’ve already replaced the pitiful front light that came with it, but the rear and side illumination is still very poor. The panniers completely obscure the rear light when viewed from the side.

Using the City Vision pedals undeniably makes a big difference to that, particularly on the brightest flash mode.

Operation is as you’d expect: a long press on each pedal’s power button to switch them on and then a shorter press to loop through two steady and two flashing modes.

Battery life is quoted at 7.5hrs/15hrs on steady and up to 60hrs in the flashing modes. If you leave them on when you jump off the bike, they’ll go into standby mode after 30 seconds without movement, and to preserve the battery, they’ll switch fully off after half an hour.

The whole light assembly is removed for charging, sliding outward with a firm pull. It’s retained in place using magnets. In theory, this means someone could just pull it out if the bike was locked up – although it wouldn’t be a lot of use to them without the rest of the pedal. If you were leaving your bike somewhere where this kind of stuff happened, you could also easily remove both light units.

Each light unit has a USB-C charge port protected by an effective rubber bung. Look says the pedals (or rather the lights) are IPX7 rated, so they’re capable of withstanding immersion in up to a metre of water for 30 minutes. They’re supplied with a Y-shaped charge cable so that both pedals can be charged from a single power source. Look quotes 3hrs for a full charge.

As for the rest of the pedals, they’re a good size (100 x 103mm) and made of a tough composite material. Each side has a coarse, knurled pattern with some taller knobs along each side to dig into the soles of your shoes. I found they were pretty grippy when used with trainers or flipflops.

Value

As we mentioned when we reported on the new generation pedals for the first time, Look has also reduced the price significantly from the first version. That’s welcome. Emma thought that a price of over £100 significantly reduced their appeal.

In contrast, the Redshift illuminated pedals we reviewed are pitched at a premium market and are now priced at over £150.

They do some very clever things, however. Each side has red and white LEDs and the pedal works out which way up it is and lights the front white and the rear red, (thus conforming to at least part of the legislation (but not the bit about reflectives).

The Redshift pedals also stay in standby mode for 24hrs, and I think that would really improve on what the Look pedals do. On most e-bikes, the lights turn on automatically when you switch the bike on, so I would often forget to switch on the pedals. It would be great if they could be permanently on standby, although this would obviously reduce the battery life.

Overall, I liked the Look City Vision pedals and personally wasn’t too worried that they aren’t compliant with the traffic regs, as I’ve never been stopped for not having reflectors on my pedals. Those who want to spend their money on something that better follows the local regulations would be better spending (more of) their money on the Redshift Arclight. Hopefully Look can make a third version at some point which reverts to orange lights all the way around.

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