Best bike lights: Front, rear & auxiliary lights for cycling

The best bike lights fall into one of two categories. The first help other road users (cars, primarily) see you. They’re usually run at night but increasingly riders are opting to run them as daytime running lights on every ride for added visibility. Both front and rear options fall into this category, and the majority of the best budget bike lights fall here too.

Secondly, you have lights that help you see where you are going when riding in the dark. These naturally also serve to make you more visible too, but are larger and brighter, and only front lights fall into this category. A lot of riders bolster their ‘seeing’ front light with a ‘be seen’ auxiliary one too. 

Added features aside, like radar enabled rear lights for example, all bike lights need to be bright enough for their intended use, have a battery that lasts long enough that they don’t leave you invisible halfway home, and robust enough to deal with the worst conditions that winter riding can throw at you. Each light in this list fits the bill in these regards, so it’s just a matter of picking the best setup for your use case; a 20 minute each way commute in a well-lit city is very different from riding through the night on country lanes. 

My pick, and what I use on my road bikes, is a combination of the Outbound Detour up front and the Exposure Boost-R at the back, but for off-road use, I tend to switch the front light out for an Exposure Race. I’ve made my suggestions as clear as possible, but if you are left with more questions then there’s an FAQ section at the bottom of the page to help guide you through.

Quick list

Best front bike lights

Best front bike light overall

The Outbound Lighting Detour is visibly a bit of a departure from your more standard, tube shaped bike lights. It’s wider, with two giant hemisphere reflectors and a prominent, almost frowning brow. One big button set between sets of cooling fins on the top controls things, cycling through the four main beam modes and two strobe patterns. 

The slightly odd visuals are a result of the Detour’s engineering to create a ‘shaped beam’. Effectively instead of having the LEDs pointing directly outwards creating a cone of light, the diodes point downwards within the body of the light, and are shaped by a pair of conical reflectors to project the beam outwards. This means that the upper half of the beam is truncated, meaning everything above the top edge of the light body (assuming it is mounted horizontally) isn’t blinded. This means pedestrians don’t get annoyed, and it means cars can see you, but aren’t so blinded by your light that they can’t see anything else.

I found the build quality to be excellent, and while having a rubberised body is unusual, it makes it easier to handle. The bar mount is well designed and secure, and enables you to mount the detour above, inline, or below your bars, but I opted to sling it beneath my bike computer. In this orientation it’s more out of the way, but I do think it looks a little bulbous compared to most other options on the market. Still, I do think aesthetics are a secondary consideration to how well it actually lights. 

The shaped beam means you aren’t ‘wasting’ lumens lighting up things above your eyeline, so you can get away with running it on a lower power than you perhaps would with a standard conical beam, which aids the battery life even more. 

Should you ever run low on power – say you are a masochist and regularly embark on through-the-night epics – you can plug the Detour into a power bank and charge it up while it is still in use. The cable included creates a weather-sealed connection, but this does still rely on you having a way of waterproofing the power bank if it does rain. 

In short, I think the Detour is an excellent do it all option. The price is affordable for what is on offer. The only real drawback I’d say is that it isn’t really suitable for technical off-road riding. The cutoff beam is fine on fire roads, but in tricky terrain you’re going to want a classic cone shape so you can see if there are trees/rocks/cliff edges coming up fast. 

One final party trick up the Detour’s sleeve is the default ‘Adaptive’ mode. When you turn the light on it’ll begin on full power, but then slowly reduce the brightness over the course of half an hour as your eyes get used to the darkness, improving the battery life in the process. 

For all the ins and outs we have a full review of the Outbound Detour that should help answer any other questions you might have. 

Best budget front bike light

The AMPP900 is the successor to the venerable old Volt 800, a light I bought around a decade ago and is still going to this day, despite the light itself being discontinued. The AMPP900 takes a lot of what I loved about the Volt 800 and builds upon it. 

The brightness, 900 lumens at its brightest with three brightnesses and two flashing modes, is just about right to fulfil commuter duties without being overkill, whilst still just about being bright enough for forays into proper night time riding. I’m not going to pretend you’re going to have as well-lit a time as you will with more premium, brighter options, but if your night riding involves a dark commute and the odd pre-dawn or post-dusk jaunt in the winter then it’s perfectly adequate.

The old Volt used a replaceable battery. I never needed to replace mine, and it did seem an odd thing to build into a light. The AMPP900 is a self-contained unit and has made the switch to USB-C. One thing that has also improved in this regard is the space around the charging port recess. On old models, it was a little small meaning only certain leads would fit, but here it’s dead roomy. 

You can, with an adapter, mount it under a computer using a GoPro style slot mount, but I find it’s a light best suited to being on the bars. The universal FlexTight bracket has enough capacity to cope with round bars to proper deep winged aero bars, and has a pivot point meaning if your bars have backsweep you can keep the light pointing forwards. You could even mount it sideways on a fork blade if the mood took you. I found the little rubber insert a bit prone to falling out, so keep an eye on it. 

There is an 800-lumen version that’s a bit cheaper, and if you’re only commuting then you can get away with the AMPP500, a worthy competitor for the Knog Blinder 600 for the best commuter option.

Best front bike light for battery life

If you want the ultimate, all-singing, all-dancing front road light then this is where you should be spending your money. The Exposure Strada is a wonderful light and I used it all winter last year and it didn’t skip a beat. Yes, it’s expensive, and yes, there is a learning curve, but it’s got so much going for it that you can look past those things if your pockets are deep enough.

The beam is extremely well shaped. It doesn’t have quite the same hard upper cutoff as the Outbound Lighting Detour, but in order to not blind drivers it has a party trick up its sleeve. Switch on ‘Aktiv’ mode and the light senses oncoming headlights and automatically dips the beam until they have passed. It’s much like swapping from full beam to dipped in your car, if you have one, and is utterly seamless. You can switch it off, but I couldn’t think of a reason to. 

The initial setup is a bit of a faff, whereby you have to select from a list of 7 options of brightness groupings, each option containing three different brightnesses that you can cycle between, either through the bottom on the rear or via a wired-in button you can mount to your bars, but once you have your desired setup it’s about as fit-and-forget as you can get.

It’s hefty, but if, like me, you’re fitting it to a winter bike with mudguards and a frame pump and aren’t using it for a hill climb it isn’t really an issue. The weight does mean I strongly recommend you use a metal computer mount if you’re slinging it beneath your computer. I initially fitted it under the plastic mount that came with my Hammerhead Karoo 2, which snapped on a descent and sent the light and computer tumbling down the road at warp speed. The light was still working when I found it, despite the massive impact it had taken, a testament to the brilliant build quality of these things. 

The massive internal battery is what allows this light to have such enormous battery life, and while it’s in this guide as the ‘best for battery life’ option, I think it’s more of a money-no-object, best of the best option.

If you want more details then head to our Exposure Strada Mk11 SB AkTIV review. It is the previous model, but the changes to the Mk12 are very minor so the majority of it is still relevant. 

Best front bike light for commuters

Of all the lights I’ve had in for testing this one also wins the ‘works best as a torch’ award. Unclip it from the mount and it is basically a wee little handheld torch, which is surprisingly handy. Yes, the others work for that purpose too, but not so well.

Anyway, this isn’t Torch Weekly or some such publication. The Knog Blinder 600 ticks all the boxes for a great commuter light. the 600 lumen brightness is enough to keep absent minded taxi drivers paying attention, but not so bright you’re going to blind anyone coming towards you. 

The mount is easy-on and easy-off, a lot faster than the AMPP900 for example, and you can remove the light from the mount just by pulling it off with a click. It’ll mount upside down in the mount if you want to sling it under your bars, but unlike the GoPro mount that comes with the brighter Blinder 900 there is no cam lock on the bracket so I’d stick to having it up top if I were you. 

You can get a GoPro mount from Knog directly if you want to sling it beneath your computer for a very neat setup, and I’ve done this on more racy bikes when I want to use it as a daytime running light when out in the countryside. It does have a tendency to slide forwards or backwards in the mount though, so I’m still in two minds about how I feel about having it suspended. 

Best bike light for gravel

Much like with the Exposure Strada below there’s a bit of a learning curve to get over for the Exposure Race. You use the single rear button to select from 10 different preselected brightness options. Once your program is selected you can then use the button on the fly to cycle between the options you want. Some have two brightness options, some have three, but each is etched onto the underside along with how it impacts the battery life.

What’s really neat about the Race, which is technically an MTB light, is that the maximum lumens aren’t available outside of program modes with ‘Reflex’ options. Basically if you have Reflex on the light increases the brightness as your speed increases, and it learns your top speed so is constantly adapting to your riding. This means that when you’re picking up speed you haven’t got to take your hands off the bars (hard to do on rough terrain) to switch modes, and it also conserves the battery versus just leaving it on high all the time.

For gravel I find 1,200 lumens (or the boosted Reflex mode) to be ample – if you need more then bigger MTB lights like the Monteer 12,000 are available for specialist applications – but be aware the light cone is unshaped, and when at its brightest can be quite dazzling for other road or trail users.

Another reason I really rate the Race for gravel is the mounts are absolute rock solid. The bar mounts are great, but even slung beneath a (full metal) out front computer mount there’s never a worry of things coming loose or falling off. Everything is well engineered, and if you do cock up somehow as I did with the Strada the lights are so bombproof it’ll likely be fine. 

Best front bike light for daytime running

This light was previously under the Bontrager logo, but as with many things it’s been brought under the Trek umbrella. You’ll still see some labelled as Bontrager, but they’re identical. The Ion 200 RT is perfect for those who want a small, unobtrusive, but powerful daytime running light to make sure oblivious motorists notice you.

Tiny, but mighty. The lumen count is low but the light is claimed to be visible 2km away. I haven’t tested this, mostly because the roads near me are all too wiggly and hilly, but this long-range visibility is down to a combination of an attention grabbing flash pattern and a front lens that focuses more of the beam forwards. 

The small form factor means you can slip it onto your bars and forget it’s there, or even mount it to your helmet without really noticing it’s attached. Some helmets, like the Bontrager Circuit WaveCel have inbuilt mounts for the front and the rear version of the light, if daylight visibility is your thing. 

There is a continuous light mode that can just about allow you to get home in the city, but that’s really not what this light is about. It’s an auxiliary add-on, and that’s where it works best. 

Most powerful front bike light

The use case for a light this bright is pretty limited I must admit. Needing this many lumens means you’re riding somewhere extremely dark – in a forest, away from any light pollution for example – on technical terrain, at speed. Basically what I’m describing is mountain biking. For gravel riding, generally speaking, you’re going to be absolutely fine with something like the Exposure Race.

It is phenomenally bright, which shouldn’t really come as a surprise. With all the bulbs on it chucks out a fair bit of heat, but inside the lamp head are air ducts that take cool air in and pass it over internal cooling fins. It’s all extremely engineered. There’s no doubt you’ll be able to see everything, everywhere, all at once. You’ll also probably cause local wildlife to assume dawn has come early. 

Gravel riding is slowly blurring into MTB territory though, and so if you want to see everything as you send it down some singletrack, and don’t mind having an external battery, then it’s certainly a viable option. The battery in this case is simply gargantuan, weighing nearly a kilogram in its own right, and while it comes with straps to attach to a top tube I feel happier with it inside a frame bag. This keeps things looking neater for starters, but even within a frame bag I am still scratching my head as to how to keep it from moving about. An ongoing conundrum.

Mounted to the underside of the top tube you need to run it at the rear of the tube, so it butts up against the seat tube with the rubber bumper.

Where I think it has one over something like the Exposure MAXX-D or Six Pack is in that it has a dedicated spotlight mode with a shaped beam that won’t blind pedestrians or cars if you’re riding to/from the trails, which is far more likely with gravel riding. You can’t run an out-front computer mount though, as the light requires a sturdy double-clamp.

One final bonus is that the battery is so big it works as a power bank, not just for phones but for larger items like laptops. 

Best rear bike lights

Best rear bike light overall

Another winning light from Exposure, the Boost-R with ReAKT and Peloton is about as complete a rear light as you’re likely to find. Small, beautifully engineered in anodised red aluminium, the Boost-R is really very bright indeed. Before I worked out how to change the settings (like with other Exposure lights it’s not as simple as pressing the button to make it dimmer) I had several riders ask me to turn it off if I was in front of them.

You can’t cycle through brightnesses, but instead, you select from three power modes and can then only choose between solid and flashing. This doesn’t sound ideal on the face of it, but the light has a couple of built in tricks that offset this lack of choice. 

ReAKT is the first, and that means the Boost-R automatically adjusts the brightness depending on the ambient lighting. It’ll get brighter under street lights for example, dimming when you head into darker areas. 

The ReAKT mode also comes in handy when riding in a group. Most of my riding is solitary, but when ReAKT is switched on the light flares up under braking, acting in an identical manner to a car. Good for cars and other riders. 

Peloton is the final trick, and with this on the Boost-R will dim when it senses a bike light behind it, flaring up again when the light source is removed. Perfect for a paceline where you want to remain visible at the rear of the bunch, but not blind your clubmates when pulling on the front. 

My only real gripes with the Boost-R are the included seatpost mount, which does tend to twist round, needing the occasional repositioning. My test unit is micro-USB, though the current product has made the switch to USB-C.

Best budget rear bike light

You can think of the Knog Blinder Rear as just a really good version of those cheap clip on lights you see the world over on bikes in the city. Those, in my experience, aren’t made well, aren’t overly bright, and don’t last long either physically or in terms of battery life. 

If you’re after a relatively inexpensive but visible light you can just clip onto your seatpost in seconds then this is a great place to start. The giant square face is an array of 144 small LEDs, meaning in constant mode you get a large light area. What’s really neat though is that the flashing modes aren’t simple on/off variants. In my version, the central portion varies from the outer rim in a bullseye pattern, and is much more dynamic. 

You can opt, if it’s your thing, for various patterns – skull, peace symbol etc – but I’d just stick with the standard option. I don’t think a taxi is necessarily going to be more aware of a skull than a square in the heat of rush hour.

The bracket is a little over-engineered, and it is possible to lose the hinge part, but it is very quick to use. I don’t actually think having a direct-USB charging system is that useful, given USB-C is now proliferating as the standard, and not having the body designed so the light sits vertically when mounted to a seatpost is a bit annoying from an aesthetic standpoint but does little if anything to actually affect the visibility of the light. 

Basically it’s a great option for commuters and price-savvy riders, but I wouldn’t necessarily opt for it for gravel or group riding. 

Best rear bike light for battery life

There’s an awful lot to like about the Magicshine SEEMEE 300. It does many of the same things as the Exposure Boost-R, and some more, for a lower price, and so to my mind it’s equal best overall, and the best value of the bunch. It lacks the nifty Peloton mode for group riding, and isn’t quite so sleek, but if form factor isn’t your main concern then it’s well worth consideration.

The party piece is a HUGE battery life. This is mostly down to having a comparatively huge battery built in, and while this makes it a bit more chunky it’s my view that anything not in your eyeline while riding doesn’t really matter so much. The mounts included, based on a miniaturised 1/4 turn socket as you’d find on a Garmin bike computer, are rock solid, and it comes with both a seatpost and a saddle rail mount.

As well as lasting forever, there are a few smart features too. I really like the downward pointing LED that illuminates everything underneath the rear of the bike with a red glow, making you seem bigger than a single light source ordinarily would.

Like the Boost-R it can also act as a brake light, and it can also adapt to ambient lighting conditions in order to conserve battery and maximise visibility. If you ever find yourself running out of juice (a rarity if you at least remember to charge it semi-regularly) it’ll automatically revert to low power mode and turn off the brake light function to get you home.

The build quality is excellent too, so in combination with the solid mounts I wouldn’t have any qualms about popping it on a gravel bike.

Best rear bike light for commuting

City riding and just general night riding out on the road have different challenges. The city is generally well lit, so being seen from distance isn’t necessarily such an issue, but there is a far greater chance of someone (in a car, primarily) coming towards you perpendicular to your direction of travel, and so side visibility is much more important. 

If you’re wearing one of the best cycling backpacks you could clip auxiliary lights to the sides, but you could also use the Knog Mid Cobber (a smaller Lil Cobber and taller Big Cobber are also available). They basically take the same LED array as in the Blinder Rear and bend it around your seatpost, so the outermost three or four strips of LEDs on each side are facing directly outwards.

This, in combination with a series of novel flashing patterns where the sides can flash and the centre stays solid, for example, really help you be seen from a greater range of angles. There is an identical set of white versions for the front, which you can mount to your head tube, though side visibility from the front is slightly less of a concern as you will at least have a better chance of seeing what’s coming towards you. 

Like the Blinder Rear I found the direct USB connection to be a bit of a pain, and in a world where most lights can be charged by plugging into a USB-C lead from a laptop the Cobber is less convenient. You won’t ever lose the cable, but if you’re like me you’ve got about 10,000 random USB-C cables in a drawer already.

One great thing is that an aero seatpost mount is included in the box, so for riding aero bikes, whether commuting or otherwise, you are covered without having to find an aftermarket solution.

Best rear bike light for daytime running

Everything that is the case for the Trek Ion 200 is also true here, but red. The two are also sold as a pair and make a brilliant daytime running combo that you can easily fit and forget about. 

You get the same disruptive flash pattern, and the same beam that is more focussed rearwards than outwards with the aim of catching drivers’ attention from a long way out rather than at close range from all angles. 

The relatively low power does mean I wouldn’t necessarily want to run these as my primary night riding lights, though they’d get you home as an auxiliary in a pinch. The low power, on the flip side, means they can be made to have a very small form factor without ending up with a tiny battery life.

Just like the Ion, you can mount the Flare to a helmet without adding any tangible weight, and the same drawbacks in terms of it using the older Micro-USB exist. I’d treat them like a pair to be honest with you, as if you want daytime visibility up front you probably want it from the rear too, perhaps even more so. 

Most powerful rear bike light

There isn’t anything wrong with wanting to fit the brightest rear bike like you can buy in an attempt to stay visible. If that’s what you’re after then the Lezyne Strip Drive Pro 400+ is the place to go. Its maximum 400 lumen output is massive, several times greater than some on this list, but with that added power does come some drawbacks. 

On country lanes the added brightness will make you more visible from further away, but if you are running it at full power with anyone in close proximity behind you for any length of time (traffic, either bike traffic or cars) and you may run the risk of dazzling other users. SImilarly, it’s overkill for group riding, though you can of course select a setting that doesn’t use all 400 lumens, which is primarily there for daytime visibility. 

The lower power flash patterns for night time use 80 or 50 lumens, though I am still tempted to just put it at least on the 200 flash for darker riding. In a city the ambient light is greater so there is less contrast if you find yourself overpowered.

There are seven modes on offer, and remembering which one you want takes a bit of dialling in. Cycling through them all takes time, and trying to watch the light for what it is doing does leave you a little stunned – it could really do with a shortcut double-press to cycle between flashing and solid modes I think.

Best rear bike light for safety

Making other road users (by which I mean cars) see you is the number one aim of any rear bike light. without a mirror you can’t see cars coming towards you from behind… Unless you’re using one of the new cohort of radar-enabled lights. Of the slew out there the Garmin Varia RTL515 is the original and the best. 

Ignoring the light for a second, the system, mounted to your seatpost or beneath your saddle rails, not only detects when a vehicle is approaching you from behind, but also at what speed. If a car is going to hit you then, sadly, it’s not going to stop that from happening, but I find one of the worst things about cycling is when someone close passes you at speed. With the Varia you’ll have an early warning system on your head unit, which is often worth its weight in gold. 

There are three Varia radars. One without an inbuilt light, which I think is a little pointless nowadays, this one with an integrated light, and one that also has an integrated camera. Unless you are dead set on filming your rides for evidence the RTL 515 offers most of the benefits of the system without the additional upcharge, and so I think it’s the better purchase.

In much the same way as the Boost-R, the Varia integrated light can react to what it is ‘seeing’, flaring up when it detects a vehicle to warn them of your presence, and dimming when riding in a group so as not to dazzle other riders. 

If you want to know more about the Varia system then head to our review Garmin Varia RCT715 rear light. It is the camera-enabled one, but the system is the same and that way you get a flavour of both options. 

How to choose the best bike lights for you

If you’re coming to this fresh then I can totally understand why it’s a little confusing. Lumens, lux, cutoff beams, battery sizes, different mounting options… Hopefully if you’ve come here with a clear need – “I need the best bike light for commuting”, for instance – then you’ve been well furnished, but if you’re still curious then scroll on down and I’m sure you’ll find what you’re after. 

What kind of bike light do I need?

If you’re just commuting then a basic set of clip on front and rear lights will do, about 50 lumens for the rear and 400-600 for the front. For road riding look to get a more powerful front light, up to about 1,100 lumens, that’ll allow you to see on poorly lit or unlit lanes when the need arises. 

For gravel, bump the front lumen count up to about 1,500 or more depending on your speed and the technicality of the terrain. 

What about dynamo lights?

Those eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that there are no dynamo lights here. If you’re unfamiliar, a dynamo light derives its power not from a battery, but from the rotation of the front wheel, so as long as you’re moving, you have light. They are rather more complicated, and so for ease they haven’t been added here so as to avoid any unnecessary confusion.

I do use dynamo lighting myself on my own general tourer/commuter/do-it-all machine, and am extremely fond of my SON 28 hub and Edelux II lamp setup. It is about as good as dynamo lighting gets, but that’s a discussion for another guide entirely. 

What is a lumen?

In simple terms a lumen is how bright something is. Technically it is the measure of ‘luminous flux’, with one lumen being equal to one candela of luminous intensity, in the visible spectrum, over a solid angle of one steradian.

There’s a load of jargon in what a candela is, but all you need to know is that it is basically the brightness of one normal candle. A steradian is a maths-y term for a cone projected out from the central point of a sphere. 

To bring that all together, a lumen is one candle’s worth of visible light projected out on a predetermined cone. It doesn’t actually measure ‘brightness’, as that is determined by distance from the light source too, but in the real world, a light with more lumens is going to be brighter. 

How many lumens do I need for a bike light?

Now we know what a lumen is, how many do we need? Generally speaking a rear bike light should be at least 40-50 for night riding, up to 400 for daytime visibility. 

A front light for commuting should be at least 200 lumens, though in my opinion 600 is the sweet spot for commuting so you can actually see where you’re going for short, darker sections. Up to 900 lumens will stand you in ok stead for general after dark riding, but if you want to enjoy yourself and not squint then I advise you to for something over 1,000.

If you’re riding off road, where the environment is naturally darker thanks to tree cover and being away from light pollution then you’ll want 1,500 at least. More will make your life easier, but you only really need to get into 3,000 or more when you’re riding faster, or on more technical terrain.

Mega-lumen setups like the Magicshine Mounteer 12,000 will basically allow you to forget that it’s night time for a bit and ride as normal, but there’s a significant weight penalty and I really don’t recommend it for most uses. 

It may feel correct to think that your lights for being seen should be brighter at night, but if daytime visibility is your aim then the brighter settings are there for daytime, where the contrast between the bike lights and the ambient light is greater. 

What is the law for bike lights?

The law differs from country to country, and from state to state, but as a rule you should run at least ‘be seen’ light front and rear during the hours of darkness even if you aren’t legally obliged to do so. There isn’t much more to it than that – to do otherwise is making what is already a risky activity even more so.

The only thing to note is that in Germany there are laws governing the shape of the beam of your lights so that they don’t blind pedestrians and other road users. This comes under the StVZO rules, outlined below.

What is a StVZO light?

StVZO bike lights are named as such because they meet the requirements of Straßenverkehrs-Zulassungs-Ordnung, German Road Traffic Registration Regulations. They’re specifically designed to shine a focused beam of light that points to the road ahead, rather than emitting a wide beam that spreads outwards and upwards and puts oncoming road users at risk of being blinded.

Basically StVZO lights have a sharp cutoff at the top of the beam. Plenty of non-StVZO-compliant lights also have a cutoff beam – the Outbound Detour for instance – but they aren’t technically legal in Germany even though they fulfil the same function. 

What is Lux and why aren’t StVZO lights measured in Lumens?

In the majority of cases, the output of StVZO lights is measured in Lux rather than Lumens. Lux is used because it’s a measure of how much light is projected onto a surface (called luminance), whereas lumens simply refers to how much light can be produced. 

Lumens is all about potential, but Lux is about how much light you can actually use in the real world. 

Do I need backup lights?

Legally speaking you don’t need one, and if you’re meticulous about charging your lights up then you may well never need one, but if you’re forgetful it may be a good idea to carry a small spare for at least the rear. Also, sometimes things break. All the lights here are of decent quality, but wear and tear can affect all tech, and having a light that isn’t working is legally and from a safety standpoint the same as having no light at all.

A lot of modern lights will have a ‘get you home’ feature where if the power drops below a certain level then the light will automatically drop to the lowest drain setting so it preserves what little juice is left. 

Rather than simply carrying two rear lights for example, I like to integrate an extra set in a neater way. Cateye makes some excellent tiny lights that clip into the ends of your handlebars. They are dirt cheap, and while prone to getting stolen they do make you appear much wider to cars than a single light source. 

Likewise, an additional helmet light is always helpful, and unusual lighting like that on offer from the Redshift Arclight pedals helps improve your visibility without messily clipping more things to your bike, and adds failsafes into your system should any single light fail.

How should I mount my bike lights?

The usual way is clipped onto the top of your handlebars. This does remove a bit of real estate and isn’t as neat as some other options, but it does give you easy access to the buttons that control the light modes. If you’re running an out-front computer mount though you can find the extremely intense light directly exiting the front of the bike light will obscure your computer screen.

An increasingly common setup is to mount the light underneath one’s bike computer. This keeps it out of the way, the light doesn’t interfere with reading your stats, and you aren’t going to bang your knees on it. It is harder to access the light controls here though. A word of warning, bike lights can be heavy, and if you’re going to mount one under your computer then invest in a quality computer mount. Also if you’re using a light with a cutoff beam then remember to keep it the right way up. 

Avoid plastic entirely, and I really would avoid those cheaper ones you can find on eBay that mount via your stem bolts. I have snapped both. A plastic computer mount sent an Exposure light and my computer flying down the road at 65km/h, and while this is annoying and potentially expensive it is not nearly so dangerous as having one or two stem bolts suddenly become loose after a pothole. If in doubt, clip it to your bars. 

You can also buy adapters that screw into things like fork eyelets, allowing you to bolt lights to your fork legs. Remember to do this on the fork leg closer to oncoming traffic so the front wheel doesn’t obscure your light.

Do I need different lights for gravel riding?

As long as your bike light is of sufficient brightness then there isn’t really any reason it can’t be suited for road and gravel. Cutoff beams don’t work so well off-road though, so stick to a good old-fashioned cone. 

If you’re riding fast or technical gravel then look to the world of mountain bike lights. The tech there is geared up for this sort of thing, and lights like the Exposure Race have features like ‘Reflex’ mode, where the light will automatically increase in brightness the faster you go. 

What is an IPX waterproof rating? IS IPX-6 good?

IPX is the ‘Ingress Protection’ rating, or how well whatever object you’re dealing with is at keeping water out. The ratings are as follows:

• IPX-0 No protection
• IPX-1 Protected against condensation or water falling vertically
• IPX-2 Protected against spraying water when tilted up to 15 degrees vertically
• IPX-3 Protected against spraying water when tilted up to 60 degrees vertically
• IPX-4 Protected against splashing water from any angle
• IPX-5 Protected against low-pressure water stream from any angle
• IPX-6 Protected against high-pressure water stream from any angle
• IPX-7 Protected against water immersion for 30 minutes to a depth of 1 meter
• IPX-8 Protected against continual water submersion in under water conditions

For the purposes of bike lights, IPX-6 is the one to aim for, though you do see IPX-5 and IPX-4. Remember, when riding at speed, rain becomes water hitting your lights at high velocity from various angles, and if you don’t have mudguards then your rear lights especially are beset by a near constant torrent of water. I have managed to kill inferior lights in under an hour before, so if you ride in the rain then pay attention here. 

What battery type is best for a bike light?

More or less every bike nowadays has an internal lithium ion battery, charged by a USB cable. Gone are the days of changing a pair of AAA batteries, thankfully – avoid these, as they are still sold, as they’re a pain in the backside.

Mountain bike lights often come with a larger, separate power pack that straps to a top tube, or fits in a frame bag for gravel, to save mounting a giant ingot to the bars. It’s slightly more clumsy, but they do allow you to see better when it’s very dark indeed. 

How long should my bike light battery last?

Always overestimate your needs and underestimate the specs. If you are trying to ride through the night on an epic adventure the last thing you want to start worrying about is an ever-dwindling light supply. Look at how long your ride will last then make sure you have a light that gives a comfortable buffer. Then bring an extra just in case. 

For commuting things are a little less serious but you should still overestimate your needs. After a long day at work and a rainy ride home it’s very easy to forget to charge your light. A longer battery is more convenient because you will need to charge it less. 

Whatever your need, keep in mind that brighter lights have bigger batteries and you can turn them down. A 2000 lumen light will require a bigger integrated battery than a 1000 lumen light because some people will need a reasonable burn time at full power. Instead, you can halve the power and double the burn time plus if you ever need more light, it’s there. 

Why are bike lights so expensive?

High quality modern lights have a lot built into them. There are active sensors that detect other light sources and your own motion to adapt to the conditions. Heat management is built into bigger lights, as well as bigger batteries so you can go further between charges while using less power. 

All of this comes at a price, and while you can get some really cheap clip on lights that, legally speaking, will keep you out of trouble, if you’re serious about safety, being seen, and seeing where you’re going you do get what you pay for here. 

How do we test bike lights?

Sadly it means a lot of hours riding in the dark. After an initial inspection and rundown of the specs everything is pitted against the environment it was designed for, and then some. Commuter lights are thrown into rush hour traffic to and from the Cyclingnews office. 

Road lights head out onto unlit lanes to hunt for PR’s while everyone else is on the turbo, and lights aimed at gravel riding head off into the woods to see if they can pass muster not only as a light source, but in terms of their ability to withstand muck and grime. 

Rain or shine we’re out there testing lights, and have been known to kill sets in pretty short order if the conditions are grim enough, so rest assured everything on this list is up to its billing.