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It depends on how much you ride in the dark. A full bike light set is optimal if you find yourself regularly riding at night, at dawn or dusk, or in bad weather conditions. The Garmin Varia is an excellent matching bike light set that we tested, though it is perfectly suitable to mix and match between front and rear lights of different brands or models. The BC26R churns out an impressive 1,600 lumens with a claimed 65-hour run time — though that’s on its lowest 50-lumen setting. At full power, riders will have approximately 3.5 hours of run time. Charging time is slightly longer than other lights at 4 hours via USB-C cable, but that doesn’t take away from its excellent battery system. Balancing those features against your needs, you'll need to know what sort of riding you'll be doing, whether it's going to be daylight, street-lit, or totally off-grid in the dark. The latter will require more brightness up front so you can see where you're going. You'll also know how long you're riding for - it's no use having a two-hour battery life if your ride lasts three.
Editor’s note: We updated this guide on September 26, 2023, to include new lights from Fenix, Garmin, and Bontrager, along with details about how we test and choose our favorite bike lights. The Best Bike Lights of 2023Whatever 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. How do I mount a light to my bike? To make sure you are visible at night while riding a bike I recommend using a light. There is also some research showing benefits for cyclists using lights during the day. Not every situation requires the absolute brightest light and longest battery but you will make yourself more visible with a light than without. Most organised events will also require lights for riding at night so if that's your focus that could also be a factor. What kind of bike light do I need? As with all certifications, just because a light isn’t certified doesn’t mean it’s an issue. StVZO certification is a requirement in Germany. Outside of that market it’s not and as such it doesn’t always mean a non-StVZO light is going to blind everyone else. A good light will use an effective reflector to maximise brightness and battery life. Take care to aim it precisely and it’s unlikely to be an issue. There are also non-StVZO lights that prominently discuss the cutoff characteristics of their lights if you still have a concern. What is Lux and why aren't StVZO lights measured in Lumens? Front bike lights are brighter than rear bike lights because they must illuminate the road ahead. Rear lights are meant to help you stand out from other people on the road or trail and generally emit red light. It's a great helmet that's comfortable to wear and it's got MIPS. The lights are an additional safety feature that take nothing away and are easy to use if you want to. The only downside is that Giro remains behind the times with micro-USB charging. Read more in our full review of the Giro Escape MIPS
Battery life depends on many factors including the type of battery, the type of LEDs in the light, and the light’s settings. Ride into the night with confidence and safety in mind with Decathlon’s range of cycle lights and visibility safety accessories. Rechargeable lights ensure you never have to worry about tiny batteries again - with USB bike lights you simply charge them via USB. For riding on the road, a single light mounted to your handlebars and seat post would be more than enough - mountain bikers often use a helmet-mounted light to illuminate where they are looking, but for road riding these aren’t necessary. One of the Dash Pro’s claims to fame is the three-mode daytime running lights (DRL), which increase visibility and safety for when it’s not-quite-dark-but-still-sort-of-light-out. And while you might not find yourself using the DRL feature all that often, the Dash Pro features five other modes: Boost, High, Medium, Low, and Steady Pulse. On boost, the Dash Pro will last approximately one hour, and Cygolite claims that on lower levels users can get up to 70 hours of light out of one charge. We realise this is just the older version of the RCT715 light above, but here you're foregoing the camera feature and saving some money. There are also some newly released alternatives but despite a long time on the market, and the competition, the RTL515 continues to be the king when it comes to the core functionality.The best bike lights for road riding (with the occasional off-road jaunt) make riders more visible to cars and illuminate the road ahead. They should also have a solid battery life so you don’t end up in the dark halfway through your ride. So what’s the verdict on the high-tech Varia? It definitely improves situational awareness and could potentially save your life. We’d like to see widespread support for the Varia on the most popular cycling computer platforms. In this regard, we feel that the Varia is just a little bit ahead of its time. We’re willing to bet that the field of competitors will grow substantially in the next couple of years, and the Varia will be the unit to beat. Because every cyclist has different needs, there is no fixed lumen count that every shopper should aim for. If you are riding in the daytime and simply want to increase your visibility and be seen by other road users, 100+ lumen front and rear lights should be sufficient. Here's a blown up image of the top left two -- a fork-mount adapter and a light mounted on said adapter. Note that this placement is just about where ye' olde friction dynamo lights used to be mounted. 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.
On this list, the Garmin Varia is an excellent road-riding light. Road cyclists that will be sharing the road should also have a bright rear light with plenty of battery life for long rides. Mountain Biking Bike lights vary wildly in price. Like most things, you generally get what you pay for. While it isn’t necessary to buy the most expensive light out there, we do recommend that you go for the nicest lights that you can afford. When you’re riding home in the dark, you’ll appreciate having a reliable light with plenty of battery life to keep you rolling along safely.
Installation Instructions:
The unit itself is compact and fits a wide range of seatpost styles thanks to the included assortment of seatpost adaptors. Battery life is a solid 6 hours on full blast, and 16 hours in daytime flash mode. Garmin claims up to 1-mile visibility in daytime mode. Charging is handled via micro-USB and takes about 3 hours to fully charge. In general, it’s super easy and super simple to set up the Varia. We love to see it. For those who instead intend to ride with less street lighting - such as in the countryside, parks, lanes, and off-road, the best bike light for you will help you see where you're going. The addition to this is that if you are riding in the city with plenty of light, the faster you go the more light you will want to feel comfortable so keep that in mind as well. Our expert testing team is composed of experienced cyclists and outdoors-oriented people looking for the best products on the market. Our staff includes former bike racers, recreational cyclists, folks who bike-commute 60 miles a week, and everyone in between — people who care about fit, finish, and function in every product we use. That said, there is some learning you will want to do ahead of time. Everything is proprietary and initially the way everything works is confusing. The advantage is that you can spend your time figuring things out at home then, when you are in the heat of the moment, everything is incredibly simple. Recently Light and Motion added a second light — the Trail, to the Vis Pro 100 lineup. Functionally the two lights are almost identical, however, the Trail version comes with a Velcro strap to attach the light to your helmet.
The light output is 1600 lumens max and the 10,200 mAh battery will give you a burn time of 2 hours at max power. From there, drop the power by half and you get twice the battery power. You can figure out what power and battery life you need, then on the road you turn on the light at the selected program and you've got high, medium, and low available within that program. There is a display that says exactly how much burn time you have at the power you have selected with no thinking required. If you need even more runtime there are weatherproof batteries you can connect and there's also an included remote switch. The AKTiv version even has an auto-dim feature that temporarily reduces the light when an approaching vehicle's headlights are detected. This light is beautifully made, robust, and simple when you need it to be. The only downside is that you do pay for the quality.
We made evening grocery runs, early morning commutes, and spent plenty of time in the saddle riding the gravel roads and country lanes of the Owens Valley in low light conditions while paying close attention to the usability and brightness of each light. While the oversized bar mount is certainly a plus, the design of the mount itself doesn’t appear to have been updated. The clamp itself works well and the design is intuitive, but the interface between the light and the clamp is less than secure. This made our tester less than confident in rough or off-road conditions. Lumens is all about potential, but Lux is about how much light you can actually use in the real world. How do we test bike lights?
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