| If you happen to live in an area that gets really hot in the summer months then you are most likely familiar with riding at night since you might not have a choice. Or maybe you like to ride after work but it's dark and of course you need a light otherwise you are asking for trouble. There are many lights to choose from and it's pretty easy to find one that will do the job but then again some are better than others. So lucky for you we like to try out new products so we can tell you if they are any good or not! |
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If you aren't a fan of cables then you might want to look into a self-contained light where the battery is in the light itself. Otherwise you will be attaching the battery to your frame with a Velcro strap which is not the end of the world of course. Most biking lights tend to have separate batteries but there are still some good ones that are self-contained. We recently did a review on the Exposure Lights MaXx-D MK8 Headlight and it's a pretty good light but its bulky, hard to program and very expensive. Plus we weren't too thrilled with the light beam. We also reviewed the Cygolite Expilion 700 light which is ok for the price but the beam is too focused for our liking and it's not as bright as we would like either.
Lately we have been trying out the Serfas E-Lume 1600 light and it's a self-contained unit that offers up to 1600 lumens on the highest setting. It has dual lights for a wide spread beam and 6 settings each offering different levels of brightness and run times as you can see from the table below.
It takes about 3 hours to charge where the Exposure Lights model took half the day or you just had to do it overnight. We actually found that it charged must faster than 3 hours. From out of the box with a dead battery just plugged into a USB port on a computer it seemed to only take an hour or so. And speaking of power the Saris E-Lume has an indicator light that tells you the charge level.
Solid Blue = 61% -100% charged
Solid Orange = 21% -60% charged
Flashing Red = 0% -20% charged
The light comes with a micro USB cable that you can attach to your computer's USB port or to your phone charger. One complaint is that the cable could be longer and is only about 10-12 inches. But at least if you lose it you can easily get a replacement cable or maybe you might even find one laying around from your phone. The cable connects into the bottom of the light and the USB port is protected by a rubber boot. One cool feature is that the light remembers the last setting you were on and sets it to that level the next time you turn it on.
The light also comes with an overheating feature where if the light is getting to hot from not enough air flow it will automatically go into the medium setting to keep itself cool. It's also stated to be water resistant with a IPX6 rating which the highest rating before becoming waterproof.
For mounting the E-Lume comes with a handlebar bracket that stretch fits around the bars kind of like a rubber band. If you like to have your light off to the side of your bars on the skinny part then this won't work for you because it won't go small enough to have a tight hold. If you have super think bars near the stem or 35mm bars you might not be able to get it centered near the stem. If that's the case they sell an extra large version of the clamp designed for 35mm handlebars. It's very quick to take the clamp on and off the bars.
While testing the light we were quite pleased with how well it performed out on the trail. The clamp held it steady in the rough stuff and the wider beam lit up straight ahead as well as off to the side. Low mode worked fine for climbing and when putting it on overdrive you can go downhill pretty fast without worrying about not being able to see what's coming up ahead. Battery life seemed to be pretty good too and we were running it on overdrive a lot and had no problem riding for a couple of hours but we don't know if it would last the whole time on that settings. We tried it side by side with the Cygolite and the difference was night and day (literally).
Overall the Serfas E-Lume 1600 is a really good light for the price point. It will run you around $140 and if you get the extra clamp you can find one on Amazon for $12. Compared to those $300-400 lights it should do the job almost as good but at a third of the price and you won't have cables running down your frame.
