Bike Lights For Winter Riding | Cycling Weekly
It's dark and grim out there so be safe and be seen with the best bike lights. In this group test Michelle and James put five brands against each other.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 A good front light is an important part
00:14 of your riding safety arsenal, and not just for winter.
00:17 A decent front light can be an excellent partner
00:19 to keep you visible during the day,
00:21 and of course, helps you to see the way
00:23 when you're riding at night.
00:25 We've chosen five front lights here
00:28 from some of the market leaders,
00:30 and we're gonna showcase and compare them
00:32 to find out what are the features you need
00:34 to be looking at when you're choosing
00:36 the right bike light for yourself.
00:38 - We are comparing and contrasting these,
00:40 and we will pick a winner,
00:42 which is the most recommended product of these five
00:44 at the end of this video.
00:46 Now, these are all lights for seeing.
00:50 We generally break lights into two different categories.
00:53 There are lights for being seen and lights for seeing.
00:56 These all come into that second category.
00:59 - There are more powerful lights that you can use,
01:01 but these are five that really give you
01:05 all the features you need.
01:07 They've got enough light for you
01:08 to actually see the way properly,
01:10 and best of all, they won't break the bank
01:13 in terms of how much they cost.
01:15 If we look at them from the left to the right,
01:17 what we have here is we have
01:18 Lezyne's MicroDrive Pro 800 XL.
01:22 Next to the Lezyne is Xposure Sirius Mark IX Daybright.
01:27 In the middle, we have Nog's Blind Air Rode 600.
01:31 - We then have the CatEye AMP 800.
01:35 Last but not least, we have the Kryptonite Insight X6.
01:40 So James has been testing all of these five lights
01:42 for our magazine group test,
01:44 so you've been putting them through their paces
01:46 for quite some time,
01:48 and we're gonna run through the key features,
01:50 and I'm hopefully gonna ask all the questions,
01:53 the burning questions that you,
01:54 the readers and viewers, have.
01:57 - So if we start with the Lezyne,
01:59 because that's right here in front of me.
02:01 Yep, so first of all, it's got a maximum of 800 lumens
02:05 that's claimed from the dual front LEDs.
02:10 There are, in total, eight different light modes.
02:15 - You need eight.
02:17 - Well, this is one of my issues with this.
02:18 If we wanna talk about
02:20 some of the problems,
02:21 as well as some of the real good things about it,
02:24 there's almost too many.
02:25 So, and the issue with it is there's five different
02:29 standard non-flashing sort of light settings,
02:33 and then three flashing settings.
02:35 In total, it's crazy amounts.
02:37 So, you know, and the thing is as well
02:40 is some of those you can only activate
02:42 by pressing a button in a certain way.
02:43 So the way that it works,
02:45 you've got a single button on the top, like so.
02:48 Press it once, nothing happens,
02:50 but it does show you a different colour on the top.
02:53 And that colour indicates how much battery life it's got.
02:55 So that's a really neat feature about it,
02:58 so you can see if you need to charge it or not.
03:00 So press and hold it, and obviously the light turns on.
03:03 Then cycle through, goes one like this.
03:07 And it doesn't tell you which mode you're in.
03:09 So that's kind of like the one slight issue.
03:11 It does have a memory, so when you turn it off,
03:15 when you turn it back on again,
03:16 it will turn it back on on that mode that you're on.
03:19 But what I found when I was using it
03:20 was I would be putting it on a mode,
03:22 going, "Is that the brightest setting?
03:24 I can't work out if it's the brightest setting."
03:26 So I'd click it down, and then you kind of go,
03:27 "Oh, I can't remember."
03:28 So you have to like go through them all.
03:29 And there's so many you have to go through.
03:31 In terms of how long it lasts,
03:33 this is one of the areas that it does do very well.
03:35 So it's got decent electronics inside.
03:38 So even in that highest, brightest setting,
03:41 it'll last for nearly two hours,
03:42 or an hour and 45 minutes is pretty much what they claim.
03:45 And I got it to run for about that length of time as well.
03:48 So it's pretty decent.
03:49 All the way up to the femto setting,
03:51 which is the 15 lumen lowest setting,
03:53 will last for 80 odd hours.
03:56 And charging wise, it's got a standard USB-B sort of charging
04:00 so it charges about four hours or so to do that,
04:03 which is nice.
04:04 And because it's a standard sort of cable,
04:07 we've got them, everyone's got them.
04:09 So that's really neat.
04:10 And the weatherproofing is brilliant.
04:12 So I used another Lezyne light
04:13 when I did like Lanz and John O'Groats last year,
04:16 and it was on my fork leg the entire time,
04:19 rained every day, and I had no issues with water.
04:22 And the same goes for these.
04:24 They're absolutely bomb-proof lights.
04:26 And the other good thing as well,
04:27 the strap, so the bracket on here,
04:31 is obviously designed to sort of fit
04:32 around a round handlebar,
04:34 but you can use it on aero handlebars.
04:36 And this is one of the things
04:36 that a lot more people have got now,
04:38 and it's one of the things that when we tested these,
04:40 we worked out if you'd use them.
04:42 And you can take off this little adapter, like so,
04:46 and then it means you can actually run it
04:48 on a much bigger diameter handlebar.
04:50 And it's still rubber and grippy,
04:52 and so that's brilliant.
04:53 So this is actually the cheapest light on the test.
04:58 So it retails at 60 pounds,
05:00 which is really good for the actual,
05:03 the capacity, the brightness and everything that we've got.
05:05 So moving next, we have the Exposure Sirius Mark IX Daybright.
05:10 I'm going to call it the Sirius from now on, okay?
05:11 I mean, you've got to love an Exposure,
05:13 who doesn't love an Exposure light?
05:14 So for those people that don't know,
05:16 Exposure is a British brand.
05:18 They make these in-house, so everything's machines,
05:22 even like the lens itself, they manufacture in-house,
05:25 and it's backed up with a pretty formidable customer service.
05:29 This is the smallest on test,
05:31 a dinky, really, really little.
05:33 It weighs just over 90 grams with the actual bracket itself,
05:38 so it's the lightest on test by some way.
05:41 So Exposure, it's a metal body,
05:43 so it's machined aluminium,
05:44 it's got some beautiful cooling fins on here as well,
05:47 so it's allowing it to dissipate the heat.
05:50 It produces up to 850 lumens,
05:52 so it's on paper the most powerful here,
05:56 but again, it has a few little tricks up its sleeve
06:00 that kind of sets it apart.
06:02 And I must say, at this point,
06:04 this is also the most expensive light on the test, okay?
06:07 So this retails at 100 pounds.
06:09 It uses a very, very simple bracket,
06:11 so this is just a simple piece of plastic
06:14 that it clips into, which you kind of,
06:16 on the look of it, you go,
06:19 "That's not gonna hold it in place."
06:22 But it does, and I can testify this,
06:25 because this is the same bracket
06:27 that Exposure have used for over a decade.
06:29 So for over 10 years,
06:31 they've used the same style of bracket.
06:33 Just literally clips in like so, and it's solid,
06:36 absolutely solid on there,
06:37 so you can just leave that on your bike,
06:39 or it's so simple, you can just take it on and off as well.
06:41 So I tend to keep it all together,
06:44 because if you lose that, well, you can't really use that.
06:47 It uses its own charging cable,
06:50 so that's the one thing about the Exposure system
06:52 that some people might not like,
06:54 is if you don't take your cable with you,
06:57 well, you're a bit scuppered, really,
06:59 so you can't just use any normal cable.
07:01 It uses a little charging port in the back.
07:03 It's got a real, real solid rubber cover on here,
07:06 so it's just really waterproof,
07:07 but this is one of my problems with this light,
07:10 is it doesn't just pop on easily.
07:12 You kind of have to like sort of really fiddle with it,
07:14 so you can't just pop it on and off.
07:16 The switch, this is a big, chunky silver one on the back,
07:19 but when you turn it on, it's a double-click to turn it on.
07:23 You can see here, you've got different colours.
07:25 So like the others, it has a traffic light system,
07:28 so on the first click, it tells you which mode you're in,
07:31 so it's really simple and really obvious
07:34 from that point of view.
07:35 So to access the flashing modes,
07:37 you have to then press and hold it enough
07:39 until it starts the flash mode,
07:41 so you can't cycle through to that.
07:42 - But not so long that it turns it off.
07:44 - No. - It's a press and hold
07:45 middle ground. - It's a fine line, fine line.
07:47 And then if you press it again
07:48 when you're in the flashing mode,
07:49 it'll return back to the constant,
07:51 but then you have to press and hold it
07:52 until it doubles flash to turn it off.
07:55 So it has something called OMS, Optimised Mode Selector.
07:59 It's user programmable settings,
08:02 so there are actually seven different programme settings
08:06 you can then choose, which basically tells you,
08:09 or it can dictate how much light each mode sets at
08:12 or gives out, or even how many modes you actually have.
08:15 The technology in this is insanely good.
08:18 There's like some very, very cool features about it.
08:21 What's also then good is the side visibility.
08:25 Now this is something that we kind of often forget
08:27 about road users, is when you're riding along,
08:30 there's always cars and other people on the side.
08:32 So this has got great cutouts on the side,
08:35 so it's actually got very, very good visibility
08:37 from the side.
08:38 So I like that from that point of view,
08:39 so that's really, really decent.
08:41 In terms of runtime, well, as I said to you,
08:45 you can programme this, so the highest,
08:48 in the 850 lumens, it'll last for an hour and a half,
08:50 which is brilliant.
08:52 Then it'll go all the way down to like, sort of,
08:54 god, 36 hours in the lowest constant mode,
08:58 flashing then for even longer than that.
09:00 So it's got more than you ever really need.
09:02 It's a bit more expensive,
09:03 it's a bit confusing to use,
09:05 and the last thing that kind of is a slight issue
09:08 is if you've got aero handlebars,
09:11 this bracket won't work as standard,
09:13 'cause this strap is too short.
09:15 But they do sell a longer one,
09:19 but then you're looking at another five pounds on top,
09:20 so you're looking at 105 pounds compared to 60 pounds.
09:24 So there is a bit of a difference in terms of price.
09:27 - Okay, so next on test, we have a Nog Blinder 600.
09:32 As the name would suggest, 600 lumens, right?
09:35 - 600 lumens.
09:36 Nog do things slightly differently.
09:38 They're kind of like a cool company
09:40 when it comes to their lights,
09:41 and they aim at road users and commuters mainly.
09:44 So they're super simple to use, very, very small,
09:48 and that one's great because it's designed
09:51 to sit on the front of your handlebars.
09:54 So it means it doesn't take up a lot of space
09:56 on your handlebars themselves.
09:58 So for riding as normal,
10:00 it's pretty brilliant from that point of view.
10:02 And it's a real simple system as well.
10:04 So it's just like, almost like a little cam lock
10:06 that just clips over the top, and it's pretty solid.
10:08 So 600 lumens max,
10:10 so that is the lowest power setting we have here,
10:13 but it's still a very usable amount of power.
10:15 - And we will compare the beams as well, just to see.
10:17 - Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
10:18 And there's only four modes,
10:21 which actually is one of the lowest choices on the list.
10:26 - And also what's quite nice is that on the top,
10:28 you've got, it looks exactly like what's on your,
10:31 you know, on the inside of your car.
10:32 You've got that kind of half beam, you've got the full beam.
10:35 So, you know, if someone is a little newer to cycling
10:37 and maybe they've been driving a bit longer,
10:39 you know, those are very kind of standard signs
10:43 that pretty much anyone would recognize,
10:44 which I think is quite a nice touch.
10:46 - The real neat thing with this,
10:48 as you're kind of, as you're fiddling with it at the moment,
10:49 - I'm going there, yeah.
10:50 - Is how you charge it.
10:51 So underneath the bracket is a little USB plug.
10:56 So you can either plug it into your laptop or plug,
11:01 or it does come with a little cable.
11:02 - Yeah.
11:03 - There you go.
11:04 - It's sort of hanging around, right?
11:06 So it is.
11:06 - It is, but like, you know, most people would be aware
11:10 that there's a massive thing sticking out the side
11:12 of your laptop so you wouldn't damage it.
11:14 Nog do claim that it lasts on the brightest setting
11:16 about an hour, up to nine hours on the lowest setting,
11:21 like the flashing, which,
11:22 - So less than all the others.
11:23 - Less than the others, but then you can just plug it in
11:25 every day and then you're all fine.
11:27 Price wise, this one isn't as cheap as some of the others.
11:30 So it's 79.99.
11:32 - Wow. Okay.
11:33 So moving on, we have this fairly chunky unit,
11:37 which is the CatEye AMP 800.
11:40 And CatEye have been making bike lights
11:43 and bike computers for as long as I've been going
11:47 to bike shops.
11:48 They're pretty much, they're very often
11:50 on the shop floor, aren't they?
11:51 - They're in the fossil record,
11:52 so they've been around for that length of time.
11:53 - But not this light in itself, as a brand.
11:56 - No, and this, I think, is one of the lights
11:59 that is showing like a turning for CatEye, I think.
12:03 So it's aluminium, so it's decent in terms
12:06 of like heat dissipation as well.
12:08 It's got a really, really good design to the lens.
12:13 And overall, it's actually a pretty decent looking light.
12:17 So, yep, it's got the original CatEye bracket.
12:22 That's one of the things that people will either love
12:25 or hate about it.
12:26 - It doesn't look like it's changed for quite, I mean,
12:29 - It hasn't.
12:29 - Generally, brands are going towards the kind
12:31 of elastic band sort of approach.
12:33 And this is quite old school,
12:36 but it doesn't necessarily mean it's bad school, right?
12:38 - No, because they don't fatigue as, like,
12:41 rubber can fatigue.
12:42 So I've had like sort of rubber band snap.
12:45 Those things don't snap.
12:46 But again, like you've got a bit of adjustability
12:49 in terms of side by side or side to side movement,
12:51 which is nice.
12:52 It's easy to move on and off.
12:53 And it means you can take the light,
12:54 leave the bracket on, jobs are good.
12:57 - Does clip off really easy as well.
12:58 I find sometimes with elastic bands,
13:00 I mean, generally it's my preference, I have to admit,
13:02 but with elastic bands, when you've got big gloves on,
13:04 sometimes it's actually quite hard to kind of like operate it
13:07 whereas this is really easy.
13:10 And you've got side visibility as well, which,
13:11 - Yeah, there's a little bit of side visibility.
13:13 So the lens extends around the side.
13:15 It doesn't have any like windows.
13:17 So it just relies on light being reflected
13:20 within that clear plastic, but it does have a bit there.
13:24 When you press the button as well,
13:26 like the first two lights,
13:29 it does have an indicator as to battery life.
13:31 So it uses a three colored system.
13:33 So blue, yellow, and red.
13:35 And then blue is obviously, you know,
13:37 more than 50% charge and then going down to
13:40 wherever you want to charge it.
13:42 - How many modes have I got here?
13:43 - So you've got in total five modes on that.
13:46 So it's almost the sweet spot in terms of usability.
13:51 So three constant settings, so high, medium, low,
13:54 and then two flashing modes.
13:56 As we said, it's 800 lumens and it will power that light
14:00 for 800 lumens to up to an hour and a half.
14:03 So it's pretty decent.
14:04 All the way down to 30 hours for like the flash mode
14:07 on there.
14:07 The standard USB charging on there.
14:10 I was a bit, had misgivings about where the charge port is
14:15 because it's the bottom of the light in the front.
14:17 So it does get covered in water.
14:20 Yeah, well, funny enough, you've used these lights before.
14:22 - Yeah, so we had these for the Red Bull time-lapse event
14:25 we did and it did definitely rain.
14:27 It was very wet and they worked when we were using them
14:30 for 24 hours and they worked fine.
14:33 - Charged them up, no issues at all.
14:34 And actually, yeah, even though the little rubber cap
14:37 feels quite flimsy when you take it off,
14:39 it pops in place so well.
14:41 CatEye say you can use that as your helmet light.
14:43 So they sell a bracket, which is about 10 pounds
14:47 to fit on your helmet.
14:48 And the other good thing about it is price-wise, 64.99.
14:52 So that's, it sits right in the middle.
14:55 And I think, you know, it's got some great features
14:58 about it as well.
14:59 So I think CatEye, back on the up with that one.
15:02 - Finally, the last light that James has been putting
15:05 to the test is the Kryptonite Insight X6.
15:10 Now this light is a little different to the rest, isn't it?
15:12 Because we're not talking about lumens,
15:15 we're talking about looks,
15:16 because Kryptonite has to be different.
15:18 - Yes, so if we start with that,
15:20 everything else is measured in lumens,
15:24 which is an easy way for you to work out
15:27 where things sit in terms of a tier.
15:29 - It's a comparative scale.
15:30 - Yeah, exactly.
15:31 - No cyclists.
15:32 - So, whereas Kryptonite, kind of go, right,
15:35 lumens is great, but that basically measures
15:39 the light power, the output from the light itself.
15:42 It doesn't actually tell you what amount of that light
15:45 lands on an object, whereas Lux is a measurement
15:49 of the light to hit an object.
15:52 - I mean, the theory on lumens versus Lux is,
15:56 Lux makes perfect sense.
15:57 It tells you how much light you're actually
16:01 going to be able to use, right?
16:03 - Yes, it's usable light, exactly.
16:04 - Exactly.
16:05 - It's 64.99, so it's actually a pretty decent price,
16:09 and it's got some great features as well.
16:13 So, there are seven modes, so it's up there
16:17 in terms of how many modes, but one of them
16:20 is auto light sensing, which is pretty cool.
16:23 - Sounds fancy.
16:24 - So it means that basically it measures the ambient light
16:28 and will adjust the brightness according to how much light
16:31 it thinks you need.
16:32 So when you turn it on, the great thing on the top
16:34 is you've got two different sort of displays.
16:38 So it's got a little readout on the top,
16:41 and that tells you how many hours of battery life
16:43 you have left in that mode.
16:46 There's four little red LEDs at the bottom,
16:48 which then tell you what mode and effective
16:51 like sort of battery life.
16:52 So it gives you like different ways of actually
16:54 quickly reading or properly reading
16:56 how much battery life is left.
16:57 - I'm going to say it doesn't weigh as much
16:59 as the Cat Eye one.
17:00 - It's actually the heaviest.
17:02 - Is it really?
17:03 - Yeah, yeah.
17:03 - Different material.
17:04 - Not by much.
17:05 It's like 162 grams.
17:07 So it's heavier.
17:09 It takes up a bit more space on the bars
17:12 and it doesn't feel that quality.
17:15 - It's not very solid.
17:16 It's plastic.
17:17 - No, it's plastic.
17:18 - It's made of aluminium.
17:19 - So when you turn it on, it's got two windows on the side.
17:20 So it's good from that point of view.
17:22 And the other real cool thing is that bracket.
17:24 It's almost like a double safety system.
17:26 So you've got like a zipped, a reusable zip tie like that.
17:30 - Yeah.
17:31 - And then you clip it up with the cam.
17:33 - I don't feel like it works as well as the Cat Eye one
17:36 because I'm just thinking, if this is on my handlebar,
17:39 I've got limited space in here to flip this off actually.
17:42 It works fine off the bar,
17:44 but as soon as I put it on the handlebar,
17:45 I don't actually have that much space to get to that button.
17:48 - No, it's a little bit tricky, but you can do it.
17:51 Like with practice, like anything else.
17:53 - With practice, you can get there.
17:55 - Yeah.
17:56 Standard USB charging.
17:57 - Yeah.
17:58 - So pretty decent.
17:59 One thing I do have to say before we go to the beam test
18:02 is this one here is probably the one
18:06 that's gonna make you the best friends
18:09 with oncoming drivers.
18:11 So the way that the beam is designed
18:13 is designed to throw the light into a point
18:17 that's usable for the rider
18:19 and not to have any light escape upwards.
18:22 So it means that you can angle the light
18:24 exactly as you want it without fear
18:27 that it's gonna blind drivers.
18:29 - So it's now time for lights out.
18:31 We're gonna switch off the lights in here
18:33 and we're gonna run through each of the lights
18:35 individually and have a look at the beam pattern
18:38 and see how much of this room is illuminated
18:41 and by what distance and what kind of spread the light has.
18:45 So we've set the lights up all on one handlebar.
18:48 They're in exactly the same position in the room
18:51 and we'll run through each one.
18:54 - So looking at the design, I turn this on.
18:58 - So, I mean, the entire back wall is illuminated.
19:02 - Yeah.
19:03 - I can stand here.
19:04 I've got a pretty big shadow now.
19:06 You've got a very wide and round light pattern there,
19:10 haven't you?
19:11 - Yeah, so obviously when we look at it
19:12 from this point of view,
19:13 it's always difficult to sort of see
19:14 the exact beam pattern of it.
19:17 But if you think about where you actually wanna angle
19:20 your light when you're actually out on your bike,
19:22 you want it to be positioned at a point
19:25 where the brightness is around about
19:26 sort of 30 feet ahead of you.
19:27 So it gives you enough time to be able to anticipate
19:30 anything that's coming and then obviously means
19:33 that you can see everything around it.
19:36 First thing you notice is there is more of like a spotlight.
19:39 So you've got a bright central part on here.
19:42 So that's kind of like very characteristic
19:44 of this type of light.
19:46 Then there's quite a diffuse light.
19:48 So even though we're stood at the side here,
19:50 we're still illuminated here as well.
19:52 So the good thing here is when you're riding,
19:55 it means it's going to create an area of visibility
19:58 that covers all aspects of the road.
20:01 If we look at it on the side here,
20:03 you can see there that you can see that classic
20:05 sort of almost spotlight on there.
20:08 It's that bright central setting.
20:10 So that's the Lezyne.
20:11 So if we move to the exposure light next,
20:14 so I'm just gonna turn this off.
20:15 - Okay.
20:16 So this is not dissimilar, I would say,
20:19 but maybe a slightly brighter spotlight.
20:22 So that kind of pivotal key point
20:25 is just a bit brighter. - Yeah.
20:26 So if you move it onto the wall.
20:27 So if I was to turn this on and then turn the Lezyne on,
20:31 so if I close that off, turn the Lezyne on,
20:35 there's the Lezyne. - Yeah.
20:36 - And then.
20:37 - Definitely that spotlight is brighter.
20:40 - The exposure is very, very good
20:43 at putting the light where you need it.
20:45 So it's a very, very bright spotlight on here.
20:48 So, and you can see that you have that same
20:52 sort of visibility on the outside as well.
20:54 - The area around that is still well illuminated, isn't it?
20:57 - Huge, huge amount there.
20:59 It is a brighter white light.
21:01 So they use a different type of LED on their light.
21:04 So you can see it's quite bright.
21:05 So it's not as nice in the eyes,
21:08 but it does pick things out properly
21:11 when you're actually out and about.
21:13 So that's the one noticeable difference there.
21:15 Because it is so beam focused,
21:17 so it's so central beam focused,
21:20 the one thing you need to be aware of on this light
21:22 is even though it's got a cap on the top,
21:24 it's still gonna be dazzling people.
21:26 Just turn the nog on.
21:27 So this is in the brightest setting.
21:29 So you've got both the LEDs working on here
21:32 and you can see straight away,
21:34 we don't have that bright central section.
21:36 It's still more of like what we call a flood light
21:40 than a spotlight.
21:41 So whereas the first two
21:43 were more of a concentrated sort of bright setting,
21:45 this is more sort of an even spread of light.
21:48 - So, I mean, it gives you a good amount of light.
21:51 There is a good amount of visibility,
21:53 but I think if you're on unlit country lanes,
21:55 you're less likely to have good visibility
21:57 of things like potholes,
21:58 debris that you wanna avoid.
22:00 I think you would not feel quite so confident
22:02 using this on unlit lanes as the former two.
22:06 - Yeah, one of the things that you get
22:07 on a slightly lower power setting like this
22:09 is it actually creates bigger shadows.
22:12 So when you're creating big shadows,
22:14 what it can then do is it gives you
22:16 just almost like a false perspective
22:18 of what's coming up in front of you.
22:20 So you have to be a bit aware of that.
22:21 Whereas a brighter light almost burns through that.
22:24 Riding on your own, riding on lit roads,
22:26 or sort of like gentler speeds and commuting,
22:29 this works really well.
22:30 It's a good bright light.
22:32 So let's move on to the CatEye AMP 800.
22:38 That, again, is a very, very similar beam.
22:42 - Not quite as wide though.
22:45 - No, so-- - I think, comparative.
22:46 - If we go back, so the closest comparative light
22:50 to this one is the exposure light.
22:53 So I'm gonna blank that off
22:55 and turn on the exposure.
22:57 Let's go back to the brighter setting.
23:01 So that's the exposure.
23:02 Then blank that off, go to that one.
23:05 - It's definitely duller. - You can see
23:07 is it doesn't quite have that same bright point.
23:10 Look at that, when I turn that on top of it,
23:13 you can see we've got that.
23:14 So if I turn that exposure off,
23:17 it's almost similar to the Nog.
23:20 - It's good, but it's not brilliant.
23:23 I think that-- - No.
23:24 - That would be my conclusion there.
23:26 It will do the job.
23:27 You've got that bright central section,
23:29 so you're kind of well covered for potholes,
23:32 debris, things you wanna watch out for.
23:34 I can see a good amount of kind of spread around the room.
23:38 So there is good illumination,
23:41 but clearly it's not as bright as those first two.
23:45 - Pretty decent side visibility though.
23:47 Even though there's no windows,
23:48 it actually does light up quite well.
23:51 So moving on to the Kryptonite.
23:54 We turn this one off.
23:56 - So the Kryptonite should be very different, shouldn't it?
23:59 Because it has its wonderful looks measurement.
24:02 So let's see how that compares.
24:03 - So let's move that up to the brightest setting.
24:06 - This looks a bit like a candle, really, doesn't it?
24:10 In that kind of shape,
24:11 it's completely different to the others.
24:13 - It's really, really interesting to point out.
24:15 So what we've got here is we've got kind of
24:17 quite a large, bright, rectangular type area.
24:21 If I move it up a little bit,
24:23 so we can actually see it on.
24:25 - We, oh.
24:26 - Yeah. - Oh.
24:27 - So we've got a few things going on here.
24:31 So that's that brightest point.
24:34 Now, if we put it to where we'd have it on the bike,
24:36 that illuminates that large area there in front of you,
24:39 which is great.
24:40 That bit there is that 60 lux.
24:43 So that's all of that bright light.
24:44 And then we have an area in front of it,
24:47 which is darker, but still,
24:49 we've got a bit of light so we can see.
24:52 However, there's something missing.
24:55 - Yeah, as long as everything you want to see
24:58 is within this area, you are sorted.
25:02 Everything's great, right? - Yes.
25:03 - But what if there is a bunny rabbit
25:06 that's gonna run out from a hedge and it's here?
25:09 - This is the one thing that I found
25:11 using this light at night on unlit roads
25:15 is it concentrates your world into such a small area
25:19 that you have no awareness of what's going on around it.
25:22 And that can be pretty frightening.
25:25 And when we then look at the front section,
25:28 so kryptonite will say that there's no wasted light,
25:30 it's all usable light.
25:31 However, if we go above Michelle's ankles,
25:35 that area there is coming at you at speed.
25:39 So there are obstacles coming towards you
25:41 and you're on your bike.
25:42 And if you go more than walking speed,
25:44 your reaction time is actually quite minimal.
25:47 But trying to use this light
25:50 and ride at a speed that's normal,
25:52 so 15 miles an hour or plus than that,
25:54 is almost impossible.
25:57 - So, you know, perhaps this light might work well
26:00 in town centers, in cities.
26:02 If you want a good amount of bright light,
26:05 but you're commuting in a town,
26:08 it's lit or there are car lights going back and forward,
26:11 probably a good choice.
26:12 - I think exactly right.
26:13 You know, this is a light that is, of the five,
26:16 the only one that I would say is only for commuting.
26:20 We've shown you all the different beam patterns
26:24 and effectively what they're looking at.
26:27 Let's turn the lights back on,
26:28 get on and then find out our verdict.
26:31 - Yep.
26:31 Okay, so James, you've put these through
26:34 some pretty heavy testing over the last few weeks.
26:37 We've talked about each of the kind of features
26:39 of each of them,
26:40 and we've also looked at the beam patterns.
26:43 There can only be one winner.
26:45 So what is the verdict?
26:47 - It's quite tricky to choose between the Exposure Sirius
26:50 and the Lezyne Microdrive 800XL.
26:53 So they're both really, really good lights,
26:56 and it was difficult to fault them,
26:58 but each of them isn't perfect.
27:02 If we look at the Exposure light, it's expensive.
27:05 - Yeah.
27:06 - The button and then the programmability is great,
27:10 but it also makes it a bit sort of confusing to use.
27:14 And the fact that you have to buy another additional strap
27:18 if you want to run it on aero bars,
27:20 boosts that price up a bit too much.
27:22 But obviously the Exposure does beat everything
27:25 in terms of brightness.
27:26 So the actual beam pattern and everything is spot on.
27:31 - And longevity from experience.
27:33 Although we've not had this one for eight years
27:35 or 12 years in your case,
27:36 we have had Exposure lights for that duration
27:39 and been very happy.
27:40 - I think that's it.
27:41 It's like, you know,
27:42 the fact that they build everything in-house,
27:44 they've got like that customer service is so brilliant.
27:48 You take your Sirius light that you bought this year
27:50 and send it back to them,
27:52 and they'll be able to either repair it
27:53 or offer you a replacement.
27:56 And it's just great.
27:57 You know you've got a light for life, really,
27:59 from that point of view.
28:00 - But there's a big initial outlay,
28:02 or more so than the Lezyne.
28:04 - Yes, and that's kind of like the difference
28:06 between the two.
28:07 The Lezyne is 60 pounds compared to 100 pounds.
28:10 So that initial outlay is, that's a big chunk.
28:13 So you could buy a really decent rear light
28:16 and have them full set
28:17 for the price of that front Exposure light.
28:20 Brightness is brilliant.
28:22 You know, the beam pattern was spot on.
28:24 It's very, very similar to the Exposure light.
28:28 I really like the way that you've got
28:29 like the battery indicator
28:31 and the fact that it uses a standard USB charging port
28:34 as well, which has been really, really nice
28:37 and reliable.
28:38 And the fact that you can put that remote switch on
28:40 is a really good option.
28:42 I look quite like it.
28:43 So they did send one to me,
28:45 but obviously for the sake of this test,
28:46 I've already used it without.
28:48 But it's super simple, extra 15 quid.
28:50 The bracket works.
28:54 It's not perfect.
28:56 So the bracket isn't perfect
28:58 in terms of like the strap isn't,
29:01 I would like it to have been a bit longer.
29:04 And the difference in terms of the modes,
29:06 the fact you've got to cycle through
29:08 so many different modes,
29:09 there's too much choice there.
29:10 So that's why that kind of like doesn't win out.
29:14 So personally, I think these two are both winners.
29:19 If I was to buy a light myself,
29:21 it probably would be the Exposure
29:23 purely for that sort of longevity.
29:25 But from a value for money point of view,
29:27 for people that just want the best bike light for,
29:31 or bang for buck as we say,
29:33 the Zain Microdrive Pro 800 XL gets a win in that respect.
29:38 So yeah, out of the five,
29:41 those are the two that I certainly would recommend.
29:44 - I hope you've enjoyed this lights group test.
29:46 I hope you've enjoyed this video.
29:48 Please let us know what you thought in the comments,
29:50 ask any questions and we'll do our best to answer them.
29:53 Do like this video if you enjoyed it
29:56 and subscribe to the channel
29:57 if you'd like to see more of us in the future.
29:59 (whooshing)
30:02 (explosion)