- 2 years ago
Being safe and being seen on the roads should be a cyclists number one priority and that’s true all year round but especially in the dark winter months.
However, when it comes to choosing the right bike light, there’s a huge amount of options available, including difference in lumens, wearable options and much more.
However, when it comes to choosing the right bike light, there’s a huge amount of options available, including difference in lumens, wearable options and much more.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 [music] Being safe and being seen should be a cyclist's
00:13 top priority all year round, but especially in the darker winter months. Buying the right
00:20 set of bike lights is an absolutely essential purchase. However, when it comes to choosing
00:25 a bike light, there are loads of different options. There are differences in lumens across
00:30 bike light ranges, and there are also wearable options and ones that can be Bluetoothed together.
00:35 The buying process can really become a little bit confused. What should you prioritize and
00:40 how much should you spend? In this video, I'm going to tell you everything
00:44 there is to know about bike lights by comparing an entry-level set, such as this, to a top-end
00:50 set, such as this. I'm going to touch upon things such as lumens and brightness, build
00:55 quality and design, and modes and battery life amongst many others. To help me do this,
01:01 I'm using a range of bike lights from CatEye. This is because they have an expansive range
01:06 that offers lights at every price point. It will be much easier to demonstrate exactly
01:10 what you get as you spend more money. Now, I'm going to primarily focus on the front
01:16 because that is where things change the most as you spend more cash. I'm going to be focusing
01:21 on this, which is the CatEye Volt 80 XC as an entry-level option for £19.99. Then I'm
01:29 going to compare it to this, which is the CatEye Amp 1 100, which costs a much more
01:34 premium £95. I will also talk about rear lights a little bit. I'm going to be focusing
01:41 pretty heavily on this, which is the CatEye Omni Free, which costs £12.99. I'll be comparing
01:47 it to this, which is the CatEye Rapid X Free, which costs £50. It's a pretty big difference
01:54 in price there as well. With all of that aside, let's get into it.
02:12 When we talk about a bike light's brightness, we're typically referring to the amount of
02:17 lumens it outputs. Now, we typically break down bike lights into two different categories.
02:22 You'd have a be seen category and a to see by category. Now, the be seen category typically
02:29 outputs smaller amounts of lumens. A great example would be this Volt 80 XC that outputs,
02:35 as the name suggests, 80 lumens. We typically consider this suitable for riding in well-lit
02:41 areas where you want to catch the eye of other road users to keep yourself safe, maybe when
02:46 you're riding home from the office or riding around town. In comparison, top-end bike lights
02:53 will typically output much higher levels of lumens. Something like this, the CatEye AMP
02:58 1100, outputs, as the name suggests, 1,100 lumens, which is easily enough to see whiz
03:05 if you're riding in unlit areas such as the countryside. Now, as you might expect, the
03:12 more money you spend, typically, the higher number of lumens you'll get from a bike light.
03:19 However, a light's lumen output is really only one half of the story. The rest of it
03:27 is how does the bike light actually use that brightness? Of course, I'm referring to its
03:33 modes. Now, an entry-level option will typically have fewer modes available to the user. Something
03:39 like this has just two, constant and flashing, both of which are set at the maximum of 80
03:45 lumens. Typically, the more you spend, the greater the number of modes you get from a
03:51 bike light. Something like this AMP 1100 gets five different modes, including three different
03:57 levels of constantly on, running from the top level of lumen output all the way down
04:02 to 400 lumens. As you spend more money, you are also more likely to get sophisticated
04:07 use modes. Now, something like this has a daytime running mode built into it, which
04:12 is where it flashes separately on a maximum amount of lumens and then also on a lower
04:18 amount of lumens. This is to be used in the daytime when it's bright and you need to draw
04:22 the attention of other road users. There's also a significant difference between battery
04:28 life and runtime between an entry-level model and a more expensive model. Now, you can typically
04:34 expect anywhere between one and a half hours to five hours on a cheaper bike light, and
04:39 that's depending on whether you're using it on constant or on flashing mode. So as you
04:44 spend more money, typically your bike light gets bigger and with a bigger bike light comes
04:48 a bigger battery. Something like this has a runtime of one and a half hours in its brightest
04:54 mode of 1100 lumens, and then it can run for an enormous 60 hours in flashing mode. Typically,
05:02 across CatEye's range, depending on use, you'll get roughly 50 to 60 hours of battery life.
05:07 Again, battery life will be a big factor for you depending on your riding style. If you're
05:12 simply going to be riding into town or into street lights, then a smaller option with
05:17 a lower capacity battery might be better for you. However, if you're going to be depending
05:21 on your bike light to see by, then you're obviously going to have to prioritize a larger
05:25 capacity battery to make sure that you can always get home. If I hold these bike lights
05:34 up side by side, there's clearly a massive difference in their design. I've explained
05:40 that they sit at the opposite end of the lumen output spectrum, but how exactly does that
05:45 change their build quality? Well, lower lumen light uses a plastic casing and slightly different
05:52 materials in its build. Higher lumen lights will have aluminium bodies to better dissipate
05:58 the greater amount of heat that they're generating. However, when you get to top end lights, which
06:02 are putting out a greater number of lumens, you might be getting two different lamps built
06:07 into it. Not only does this increase the light size, but it'll also massively increase the
06:12 amount of heat that the light creates. Now, CatEye have a trade-off between this weight
06:17 and cooling, and they build the front end of the AMP 1100 in an aluminium casing and
06:22 the rear end in a polycarbonate casing to help keep the weight down. Typically, if you're
06:27 looking to spend a lot of money on bike lights, you should be looking for something that offers
06:31 that different blend of materials, or you'll end up getting a bike light that either gets
06:35 far too hot when you're using it, or it weighs far too much when you put it on the bars on
06:40 the front of your bike. One of the main things about build quality that you might want to
06:44 consider, depending on the type of riding you're doing, is a bike light's weight. Now,
06:48 sometimes you don't get that much choice over it, and as you might expect, a lower lumen
06:53 bike light is going to weigh a lot less, with something like this in a plastic shell weighing
06:58 just a few grams, all the way to the top end, this half metal, half polycarbonate build
07:03 weighing 200 grams. Now, a bike light's weight will change across the range, depending on
07:09 its lumen output, with the greater number of lumens creating a bigger light, which is
07:14 obviously going to weigh that bit more. There's going to be a difference in quality of lenses
07:19 from an entry level to a top end model. What lens quality affects is how a bike light uses
07:25 the light that it has available to it. For example, does it spread it very widely? Is
07:30 it sort of curving or weaker at the edges, or does it focus specifically on what you
07:35 want it to do in front of you? A lower lumen light is more likely to have a less sophisticated
07:42 lens because it costs less money, but also because it doesn't need to do as much with
07:46 the light that it's outputting. Whereas a 2C light, or a more expensive light generally,
07:52 is going to have a more sophisticated lens because you need it to be much more precise
07:56 in what it's illuminating to you. Really, it comes down to use case. If you're going
08:01 to be riding in the pitch black and you need to see with it, then go for something that
08:05 has quality lenses and spend that extra cash. Whereas if you're just riding in town, that
08:10 might not be as much of a priority for you. So a bike light's build quality and design
08:14 will affect how you charge it as well. Typically, there are three different ways to power a
08:19 bike light. The first is using external batteries, which is much less common on front lights
08:25 and is rarely seen. The second is using a rechargeable port, usually by micro USB or
08:31 similar. And this is far more common, especially as you spend more money on the light. Now,
08:37 at a lower level, you might get something like this, which is a USB stick stuck on the
08:41 back of the light. Now, this could be quite useful to commuters who typically use these
08:46 lights to ride into the office or around town, and they might be sat at their laptop and
08:50 it's as simple as just plugging it in to the USB port to charge it up. However, most of
08:55 the differences between build quality and especially the size of the light is going
09:00 to come down to your use case. If you're just riding around town, then you're much more
09:04 likely to stop and take a light off, in which case a smaller light might be more suitable
09:09 for you. Whereas if you're using your light to see by and you're riding in unlit areas
09:14 such as the countryside, you're probably much less likely to stop and take the bike light
09:18 off, at which point a larger light is not going to be as much of a hindrance to you.
09:26 Although it might not typically be your priority when you're buying bike lights, we would actually
09:31 urge you to take a closer look at how you mount it to your bike, because a light that's
09:35 fiddly or frustrating to mount to your bike is one that you are never really going to
09:39 want to use. It also comes into play when you consider how large a light is. Something
09:45 smaller such as this Volt 80 XC requires a slim amount that can be twisted around so
09:51 you can kind of put it in different places on the bike, and it will only use little rubber
09:55 bungs to strap it to the bike. A heavier light is going to need a much more secure mounting
10:01 option. It typically will have a wider base plate to put on the bike, and it will clip
10:06 on separately like so, so you can leave the mount on the handlebars when you want to get
10:11 off the bike and just slide the light off and take it with you.
10:15 Now Katai call their mounting system its Flex-Type mounting system, and it's pretty smart because
10:20 it can be designed in a way that you can use it with aero bars or bars that aren't the
10:25 traditional round shape. Now as you would expect, you will typically find this on slightly
10:29 more expensive options, and it's built in across the amp range on all of their front
10:35 lights.
10:39 So that's everything there is to know about front lights and how they change as you spend
10:44 more money. But what is there to know about rear lights? Now I'm going to demonstrate
10:49 the key differences using this, the Katai Omni Free, and this, the Katai Rapid X Free.
10:55 Now these sit at complete opposite ends of the spectrum, and as you can see, there are
11:00 some pretty significant differences in their design. For a little over £10, you'll get
11:05 something like this, the Katai Omni Free. Now it uses three LEDs down the centre and
11:12 has just three different modes. However, what it does have is a humongous battery life,
11:18 boasting up to 200 hours. It's powered by external AAA batteries, which are easy to
11:25 source but you do want to keep some on hand in case it runs out. It's not as easy as just
11:30 plugging it in to recharge. However, rear lights do get more modes and alternative functions
11:36 as you spend more money, and a lot of bike light companies have been focusing on giving
11:41 lights something called brake lighting, which is just how it would work in a car. So something
11:46 like this, the Rapid X2 Kinetic, has a built-in accelerometer, which means the light gets
11:51 brighter as you come to a halt or if you're slowing down when riding along. Now this costs
11:57 £39.99, so it is quite a premium feature. Finally, at the top end, you're going to get
12:03 a good balance between sleek design, form, and function, as well as multiple different
12:08 modes and battery life. This Rapid X Free costs £50 and it has six different modes,
12:15 including a smart group mode, which means it dims so as to not blind the rider behind
12:20 you, as well as a daytime running mode. Really, it comes down to exactly what you want the
12:24 light to do. Do you want to fit it and forget about it and have something that can run for
12:28 up to 200 hours and never really leave you in the dark? Or do you want something which
12:33 is much fancier, has many different modes, depending on the type of riding you're going
12:38 to do, in which case a higher-end, more versatile option might be best for you. So there you
12:44 go. I hope that this video has helped you understand what you get from bike lights as
12:49 you spend more money and ultimately helped you understand whether you need to spend a
12:53 lot of money or a little money, depending on the type of riding that you do. If you
12:58 do have any of the questions, then please do leave them in the comments section below.
13:02 Hit that like button if you've enjoyed this video and don't forget to subscribe to the
13:06 channel because it does really help us out. Now I'll be back soon with some more great
13:11 content and I'll see you then.
13:13 [MUSIC PLAYING]
Comments