Autumn is upon us (in the northern hemisphere, at least) so I thought it’d be a good time to share our favourite front lights for the darkening mornings and evenings.
I’ve opened a new form for submissions here, or you can also type your faves below.
SON Edelux running off a SON front dynamo. Just do the spend, you will not regret it. For off road, it’s a KLite attached to a SON dynamo. Just do it.
Got my first “real” headlight(to see with, not just be seen), a Lezyne 1400+ last year. I like the Race mode option(low/high only).
It’s plenty of light, but I found that I really don’t enjoy night riding. I like views. What I did learn was that good lighting means that I can enjoy the “golden hour” around sunset without worrying so much about getting home safely.
I really love Outbound Lighting. I run their Trail Evo handlebar light on my mountain bikes and their Detour on my road/gravel bikes. The light is super bright, good battery life, wide beam, and they have really good customer service. They’re a smaller outfit out of Colorado and they sponsor some local races in Arizona (where I live) which is an added bonus.
I’m a big fan of Lupine, I own the SL Mono, now also avalailable for under bar storing as SL Grano.
Here in Germany most enthusiastic cyclists run them because of the STvZo compatibility.
I also just like their build quality and customer service. You can still get upgrade kits for 20y+ old lamps.
I second the Outbound Lighting Detour.
I have an older Blackburn Countdown 1600 that was great but the battery life was starting to wear out. I’ve only had a couple gravel rides the detour but it’s fantastic.
My only gripe is the sell an Go Pro mount as well. I wish it came in the box.
My OutBound Detour crapped the bed yesterday…..noticed the light getting “bouncy” on my ride. Shortly after that, it started flickering and within a minute, it died.
Got home and the upper housing had begun separating form the lower housing. Filed a warranty claim, waiting to hear back from them. Supposedly they have excellent customer service, so we’ll see.
That or they just had the GoPro mount as their default mounting option.
Another vote for Outbound Lighting Detour. I’ve been happy with run time as well as how the light is distributed. I know they aren’t the absolute brightest, but the mount solution is excellent, the lighting distribution is top tier and battery life has been more than adequate. It’s more than I really wanted to spend on a light, but for how much I ride in the dark, it’s been worth the investment.
I would love for them to make another version with more power.
Another vote for the Outbound Detour. The light fits my needs and their customer service is great. Granted I haven’t been using it in the last couple of years. The last time I rode at night someone decided to pull up next to me in their Jeep and use me as target practice for their BB gun.
Adding a vote for the SON Edelux ii for road riding. I love the cut-off beam pattern that the German standards require and it means you get so much more light in areas where it’s useful and you don’t dazzle cars. Plus the fact it’s a dynamo light removes any battery anxiety.
Obviously the expense of having to create a dynamo setup is significant, and full of faff, but if you do a lot of night riding I can’t fault the results at all.
Another Vote For the Lezyne Macro 1400+ light. Very well priced $99 in the USA, usb c recharge able, Calimed 3hr but for sure I’ve gotten 2.5hr run time in 1400 lumen overdrive setting. Or about a week of use commuting, home from work / around town, without having to remember to charge the light.
I think lights are so regional
Outbound is big in the US, Exposure in the UK, Lupine in Germany and other parts of Europe
I suspect you’ll get a few UK folk like me singing the virtues of Exposure. Once the tears have dried from spending all the money (and again for looking directly into the light) you realise that it’s worth it. As well as excellent lights they do a gazillion mounts and have superb customer support.
Took the SON plunge when I ordered my new bike and things were spendy anyway. Got the Deluxe dynamo, eDelux II LED headlight and their usual rear light plus a splitter to be able to charge stuff on multi day rides. The bike is my commuter too, and not having to risk my own life because of battery ditto running out is huge!
And Gloworm in NZ / Australia
My vote for Lupine and more recently Supernova Airstreem!
Really? Never gone near them personally, and I don’t know anyone here who has.
Personally, I’m still a fan of the Knog ‘PWR’ I reviewed for CycleEXIF (now The Spoken). Still working perfectly circa 10yrs on, although I only really ride MTB in daylight these days so it hasn’t seen much use for the last couple of years I’ll admit.
Loving the Moon Rigel. I bought the Max for commuting (and my commute is 80km!) and loved it so much I bought the Enduro for off-road. If I use that in daylight flash mode it will literally last me 3 months between charges!
I just tried the Ravemen FR500 that’s advertised all over social media. It’s supposed to be mounted between your computer mount and computer, like a stack, but I fitted a male Garmin adapter to the bottom of my computer, facing down, so now it mounts lower.
Light on Max is OK for city use, but I’d want something with a longer throw for anything darker.
battery is OK for maybe a 2-3 hour ride on max; truth be told I’m never riding that long in the dark so it’s fine.
the battery bank feature is nice - I used it to recharge my meta glasses on a recent century event.
for really dark riding my favorite is the Lumintop B01 - brightest and widest beam I’ve used
I use a Gloworm light on my MTB (and I live in the US, where they have a distributor). Their G2.0 lights use USB-C at the light head and at the battery, and they can be used with Gloworm’s own batteries and with any USB-C battery that supports the PD standard. The lights are small and bright, and I like the mount. (No StVZO cutoff.)
I now use an Outbound Detour on my road/gravel bikes.
