Tips & Advice On Buying Bicycle Lights
There's so many bike lights out there for cyclists it can be hard to know where to start! In this video Sam, breaks down everything you need to know about bike lights and what you should be looking for. It's important that we as cyclists get seen, so, ensuring you have the right lights for your riding is important especially when it can be the difference between seeing where you are or aren't going! We look at the different light requirements between road, gravel, commuting and mountain biking and tell you exactly what you need to have for those different types of riding.
Transcript
00:00 As the temperature drops and the evenings draw in, one of the most important things you need
00:04 to be thinking about when riding outdoors is how visible you are, which is why today I'm going to
00:10 run you through everything you need to know and everything you need to be thinking about
00:14 when buying a brand new set of lights. As with any question in cycling, it's always
00:27 going to depend on a number of factors, but the first and most important is what type of cycling
00:33 are you doing. If you're riding on the road in unlit areas, then you're going to need a front
00:38 light with a minimum of 500 lumens and a rear light of a minimum of 30 lumens. If you're riding
00:45 gravel, you will need a bare minimum of 800 lumens on the front, and if you're mountain biking, then
00:51 you would need a minimum of 1000 lumens. Lastly, if you're commuting and you're mainly riding in
00:58 areas that are lit up, then a set which has around 200 lumens on the front and again 30 lumens on
01:04 the rear will be absolutely fine. Matching how bright the lights are to the riding you're doing
01:10 is the first and absolutely the most important step in figuring out which lights are going to
01:16 be best for you. Everything beyond here is very much about refining what's important to you and
01:22 how you want to interact with your lights. Now of course, with additional features comes ease of use
01:28 and extra layers of safety, but it's also worth mentioning that not all lumens are created
01:34 equally, so be sure to watch on and find out where you should be spending your money.
01:44 As I said, the lights on the market today often have a whole raft of features,
01:48 and one of the best known brands to innovate and incorporate the latest and greatest tech
01:53 is Lezyne. So I have a rather nice range of their offerings here to help me showcase
01:58 what you should be looking for if you were to buy a set of lights. Now, if you want any of the
02:02 details of any of the lights that you see in the video today, then I have linked them all down in
02:07 the description below. Like most electronic devices these days, smart features can now be found in
02:14 lights and it does make for a much easier way to interact with them. For example, with Lezyne's
02:19 Smart Connect, you can now link both front and rear lights together. Now this means that you
02:25 only have to use the one control button to control both lights. And not only that, but you can now
02:31 control both lights via a smartphone app, so you can really get into the detail and really refine
02:37 how you want your lights to be set up. Now this does make it so much easier to switch between
02:42 modes on the fly and it puts an end to fumbling around with your rear light when you're just
02:48 trying to ride along. Lezyne also features Race Mode, which allows you to toggle between the
02:54 brightest overdrive setting and the dimmer economy setting. And a feature like this is really useful
03:00 for maybe when you're out riding on the trails, you're waiting for your mates to catch up,
03:04 you can just drop it down onto that lower setting and save a little bit of battery life before
03:08 popping it back onto that brightest setting before you hit the next run. Alternatively,
03:13 it can be really useful for commuters so that you can drop it down onto that dimmer setting
03:18 so that you don't dazzle other road users and maybe when they've passed,
03:22 you can then step it back up to that brightest overdrive setting. Finally, one last feature,
03:28 which I think is absolutely crucial on any new light anyone buys, is actually just making sure
03:33 that the batteries are rechargeable. Most brands and most lights out there are USB rechargeable.
03:40 There's only a couple of brands out there that have their own proprietary charging system.
03:44 But the point still stands, disposable batteries are very much a thing of the past.
03:49 Since there are so many lights on the market, it needs to be clarified that they do different jobs.
04:00 Some lights are great to be seen by and others will allow you to see where you're going.
04:04 For commuters and riders who ride in lit areas or maybe just on those shorter journeys,
04:09 then a set which allows you to be seen by other road users will suffice. Now, to determine the
04:15 difference, anything below a 200 lumen light on the front would constitute a light to be seen by.
04:21 Any rear light over 30 lumens would also get you seen, but we recommend a rear light which is over
04:27 50 lumens for maximum visibility. To allow you to see where you're going when cycling on the road,
04:33 you would want a minimum of 500 lumens. And as I said previously,
04:37 you'd want a minimum of a thousand when you're off road.
04:40 Something which has become abundantly clear in the automotive industry in recent years
04:50 is the standardization of daytime running lights and the logic perfectly translates to bicycles.
04:57 More visibility of cyclists at any time of day is important, especially as we're more vulnerable.
05:04 Most lights will have several modes and for the daytime, using a short flash will not only prolong
05:10 the life of the battery, but it will also help catch the attention of other road users without
05:15 the risk of startling them. We'd recommend using a flashing mode for both front and rear lights
05:20 to give yourself the best chance of being spotted by everyone around you.
05:24 One thing we've noticed in recent years that's become quite popular is actually running two rear
05:36 lights and it makes a lot of sense. Since they're behind you, if one were to fail, you may not know
05:41 that you're actually riding without a light, whereas running two massively negates this risk.
05:47 Now, as mentioned previously, opt for 30 lumens or more and also consider how much light is escaping
05:54 through the sides of the light. If you're riding on roads, then having some form of side lighting
05:59 will ensure the excuse of "I didn't see you there" isn't used. And your side lighting can also be
06:05 improved by the use of running two lights as you can point both of them at slightly different angles.
06:17 Here in the UK, the law stipulates that you must ride with a front and rear light when you're
06:21 riding at night. And this must be mounted centrally or to the offside and positioned
06:26 up to one and a half meters from the ground and conform to British safety or EC standards.
06:33 Over in the US, the wording does vary from state to state, but if you boil it down,
06:38 you must be riding with lights between sunrise and sunset or when you're in conditions of
06:44 limited visibility. Essentially, you must have a white light pointing forwards and a red light
06:50 pointing backwards. It's the Germans who have the most stringent rules around the lights that you
06:55 can fit to a bike. Any bike light must conform to the STVZO standard. And any brand that sells such
07:03 lights will signpost it, very much like these ones from Lezyne, where it clearly states at the bottom
07:08 that they do. Lumens are used by the bike industry to measure the power of a light. Now, a lumen,
07:19 being a single unit of visible light, this was adopted by the industry when they started using
07:25 LEDs rather than incandescent bulbs, is measuring power in watts doesn't really make much sense for
07:32 LEDs when they consume a fraction of the power the old bulbs used to. The more lumens the light
07:38 has, the faster it will burn through its battery. This is also why lights have several modes,
07:44 so that you can decrease the brightness to conserve power. Of course, using a device which has a lot
07:51 of lumens will in theory create a lot of light, but it's also important how the device emits the
07:57 beam. If there's no spread of light, then you will end up with one very bright spot in front of you,
08:03 but then have very little light to cover the rest of the road. This is why Lezyne spends a whole
08:08 lot of time working on their beam patterns, to ensure that when you purchase a light with a lot
08:13 of lumens, the lumens are put to good use and they will be distributed in a way that it shows you
08:19 everything in front of you. So there we have it, that's everything you need to know and consider
08:24 when buying a new set of lights for your bike. As I mentioned at the start, if you want to find out
08:29 more about the lights that I've shown you today, they are linked down in the description box below.
08:34 If you have any questions, just drop them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them.
08:38 If you enjoyed the video, drop it a like, subscribe to the channel for more content,
08:42 and I'll see you again very soon.
08:44 [Music]