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Aug 01, 2023

Best bike lights 2023

Our pick of the best front and rear lights to keep you visible out on the

Our pick of the best front and rear lights to keep you visible out on the roads

This competition is now closed

By Alex Evans

Published: January 13, 2023 at 5:00 pm

Good-quality bike lights should be one of the first cycling accessories on your shopping list. Needless to say, they are essential when cycling at night or if visibility is poor, making lights a must-have during the winter and a smart addition to your bike even in the summer.

It's a legal requirement in the United Kingdom to have lights on your bike if you’re cycling after sunset (we’ve got a full guide on bike light laws), but some riders like to use them during the day as well, especially during the winter, in order to increase visibility to other road users.

Like everything, though, there are many different brands, offering an endless array of options, so it can be a near-impossible task to figure out the best bike lights for your needs.

Fortunately, here at BikeRadar, our expert testers have used and abused dozens of light sets to bring you the definitive list of what we believe are the best road and commuting lights on the market.

If you’re after lights for riding off-road on trails, you’ll need something brighter, with greater power and battery life. Check out our separate round-up of the best mountain bike lights.

Here's BikeRadar's pick of the best front lights, best rear lights and the best light sets we’ve tested. For more options, plus our reviews and buyer's guide, read on.

Best front light for under £150 or $200: Bontrager Ion Pro RT

Best front light for under £100 or $150: Knog PWR Road

Best front light for under £60 or $70: Halfords Advanced 1600 lumen

Best front light for under £40 or $60: Lezyne Hecto Drive 500XL

Best rear light: Exposure TraceR DayBright rear light

Best front & rear light set: Bontrager Ion 200 RT and Flare RT

Bontrager's Ion Pro RT strikes an excellent balance between a high lumen output and a consistent, pleasingly coloured and well-focused beam pattern.

The clamp is super easy to use and – while its real-world usefulness is questionable – the Bluetooth integration, which allows you to control the light via a Garmin or Di2 shifter, is fun. It's also simple to operate.

The Lezyne Hecto Drive XL's 500 lumens is enough for a decent pace on unlit bike paths, though with only one hour of run time at maximum output, the Hecto is best for use as an urban light.

It charges quickly, stays in the mode you last used it in (surprisingly handy) and offers a total of eight flashing and constant modes, with claimed run times of between one and 20 hours.

The Hecto is also a compact unit with a simple rubber band to strap it to your handlebar.

Exposure has been making high-performance, high-tech lights in the UK for over a decade and is adding more power and extra functionality year by year.

The latest Strada Mk11 SB AKTiv road light is now up to 1,600 lumens from 1,200 lumens a few years ago. It's got even more tech built in, with optional detection of oncoming traffic, which automatically dips the beam – a useful feature with such high output. You can wire in a remote for bar-top control as well.

An LED display on the rear shows residual battery and runtime. The light even detects if you’ve mounted it above or below the bars and adjusts the beam pattern to the different orientations.

Run time is around two hours on full power. When it comes time to recharge, Exposure has its own proprietary cable.

Setup is fiddly both for the alloy mount and for the different beam patterns, which you need to select with the light off, meaning you have to go through the process again if you don't like the result.

It's a beautifully made light, if expensive, although there are lower-priced options that don't include the AKTiv tech.

Knog's modular PWR system was released to much fanfare. The whole system is based around a central power pack that is available in a number of different capacities.

Knog also has compatible camp lights, Bluetooth speakers and more as part of the PWR family.

In testing, we’ve found the PWR system to be totally fuss-free. The battery life is also pretty good for a mid-powered light.

Lezyne's Macro Drive 1300XXL delivers a monstrous 1,300-lumen output in its ‘Overdrive’ mode that is more than enough to navigate on unlit roads or gravel paths.

The intermediate settings are well thought-out and, although we’d prefer a slightly smoother transition between these, it is possible to programme the light to suit your needs.

The mount is super-secure, but fitting it the first time proved a challenge.

Don't be put off by the 600-lumen power output: the dual LEDs of the Lezyne Micro Drive 600XL make for a powerful front light that's best suited for use on rural, unlit roads.

The rubber band handlebar mount is more sturdy than you might think and easily transferable between bikes.

Although it's easy to tap the on/off button to show the battery life indicator, you have to cycle through all nine modes to change from low to high beam.

As the light is lightweight and compact, it has a limited full-power run time.

The Red Dot Design Award-winning Magicshine Allty 1000 DRL presents excellent value for money in a nicely made and easy-to-operate package.

With a 1,000-lumen output and neat Garmin mount integration, the light can be easily incorporated into your existing cockpit setup.

The range of features, combined with a generous 1,000-lumen power output, makes the Oxford UltraTorch CL 1000 an impressive option, especially considering it retails at a reasonable £55.

Battery level is indicated by the number of hours remaining, and the light doubles up as a power bank with a USB output – handy for emergency charging of items such as a bike computer or phone.

The waterproof IPX 4 rating will withstand rain splashes, although this is the minimum we’d recommend for wet weather riding.

The light fits securely to the bar with a plastic bracket fixed by a pivot hinge and Allen bolt.

With a maximum power of 1,000 lumens, the Ravemen CR1000 provides plentiful light for rural riding, teamed with an anti-glare T-shaped beam.

The glowing orange side lights enhance visibility at junctions, without being distracting as you ride.

For a budget light, it has the feel of a more premium option, with a durable rubber strap, quick-release mount and a good IP6 waterproof rating.

For easily dimming the light while riding, a handy wired remote button allows you to change modes without having to move from your riding position on the handlebar.

The Ravemen PR1200 has a nifty high/low beam setting, similar to that seen in a car, which can be used to avoid dazzling oncoming road users.

A wired remote button could be useful for those riding with flat bars and an excellent IP8 rating means the light should survive even the heaviest downpour.

Featuring a double beam to help you both see and be seen, the Specialized Flux 850 Headlight gives you 180-degree visibility thanks to the bright sidelights.

Combining a spotlight and wider optic, the light provides a broad beam as well as a more focused reach.

The high IPX 7 waterproof rating means that it should be able to withstand the worst of winter weather.

With 850 lumens, the light is bright enough both for urban riding and rural unlit roads.

The Flux is easily fitted and removed using a solid metal bracket with a quick-release mechanism.

Trek looks to mix off-road and road use with its Kindbeam tech, designed to avoid dazzling other road users (although not StVZO-compliant). It still offers 1,000 lumens for trail riders, although illumination isn't as effective as a dedicated MTB light.

You can buy a separate remote or pair the Commuter Pro T with a Garmin cycle computer for automatic activation when you start to ride, and it's compatible with Trek's Blendr mounting system.

Made from aluminium casing, a single lens and LED, the Exposure TraceR DayBright is uncomplicated and highly effective. The sturdy plastic bracket it slots into holds the light securely.

The TraceR's bulb capitalises on all its 75-lumen max output by casting the beam 180 degrees to ensure road users see you.

It’ll last three hours in high-power mode and all day in lower settings, which are more than adequate after dark. Switching through the modes is intuitive.

On paper, Topeak's Redlite Aero 1W is nothing remarkable, but it's always the one that's ready to go and has never failed us out on a ride.

Four modes max out at 55 lumens (two-hour run time) with a low-battery indicator. Different back pieces and bands fit various shaped tubes/posts, the single LED strip is angled and it charges in two hours.

Alpkit is renowned for its reasonably priced and top-performing kit, with the Alpkit Tau 20g featherweight light boasting a 20-lumen LED light strip with five modes, including high and low flash, and a constant and pulse function.

The light will run for three hours, 30 minutes on full-whack and its switch indicates the charge level.

Cateye started the LED rear light revolution and still rules in terms of reliability. Twin LED strips scroll through six modes with a 50-lumen max and 180-degree visibility.

It's aero seatpost-friendly, but a lack of angle correction is irritating. Its light 30g weight limits max run-time to one hour, but the two-hour recharge is useful for busy riders.

Cateye has released an update called the Rapid X2 Kinetic, which detects when you brake and then brightens.

An array of COB LEDs plus a single larger strobe LED provide a large illuminated surface in the Blinder light. There are nine modes to choose from with runtimes between 2.5 hours and 50 hours.

Fortunately, there's a memory function so the light turns on with your preferred illumination pattern.

The design includes an exposed USB connector. We’d have felt happier if this was covered to avoid it getting wet and potentially corroding. But otherwise it's a quality package with plenty of light output.

As its looks suggest, the main selling point of the Knog Cobber Mid rear light is side-on visibility, and it certainly doesn't disappoint in this regard.

Run time on full power was slightly lower than claimed by Knog, but at 1 hour 40 minutes was nevertheless good for a 75-lumen rear light.

There are a total of eight standard modes, but you can also use Knog's Modemaker app to programme your own settings if you want something specific.

Top of Lezyne's six-model Strip Drive range, the Alert 300 packs in a shockingly bright 300 lumens. The Alert function uses an accelerometer to up the light's brightness when you slow down and the lens pattern gives 270-degree visibility.

There are five modes, including two constant and three flashing options. Runtimes are good, but Alert (which can't be switched off) results in variable battery life, which can be appreciably lower in stop-start traffic than on a steady ride.

With a versatile clip mount for straps or tubes, plus a robust construction, the ZDM is a bikepacking winner. Eight modes max out at a 250-lumen daylight flash (9-hour run time). It's heavy (69g) and sideways visibility is limited, though.

There's no waterproof rating, but we’ve hosed it without issue.

Easy to fit, with lots of mounting options (including a seat rail mount, which is very good at this price), the Comet X-Pro also impresses with its intense output at full power.

Run time at full power was bang on the 1 hour 30 minutes claimed by Moon too, which is very good considering the amount of power on tap.

Unfortunately, there's no pulse mode and it's a little fiddly to use on the move, but the X-Pro is otherwise a very useful rear light.

If you know exactly what you want, then you might wish to buy a front and rear light separately. For many people, though, the lure of a good-quality light set that solves all your lighting problems in one fell swoop is hard to ignore.

However, the risk with buying a set of lights is that it's easy to end up with one of the two (usually the rear) not quite cutting the mustard in comparison to the other, as manufacturers look to keep costs down in order to hit a certain price point.

With that in mind, our expert testers have tested both lights that are sold as sets and separate lights from the same manufacturers that can be purchased together at a similar overall price, with a budget of around £100.

Some of the sets in this list are no longer available, but we have listed the lights individually as we still think they would make good combinations.

These cube-shaped Bontrager lights are compact, but the front still puts out 200 lumens and the rear 90 lumens, with both lights offering flashing, constant and constant/flashing modes.

Each has an ambient light sensor to adjust brightness and you can hook them up via ANT+ with a Garmin cycle computer for auto on when you start to ride and to swap between modes.

Runtimes are good for such compact units and we got just under 1.5 hours for the front and 4.5 hours for the rear. The lights switch automatically to a lower output to preserve battery and give you an additional 30 minutes or so runtime.

Cateye has a well-earned reputation for making high-performing, good-quality lights in this category, and the AMPP 800 and Rapid X3 only serve to back this up.

The AMPP 800 has a bright, wide beam and the rear light has a clever system that uses two separate LEDs that enable you to run the light flashing and constant at the same time.

Run time at full power could be slightly better on both, but having larger batteries would naturally increase the size of the units, so it's a bit of a trade-off.

The only slight negative is the relatively high price for the set, but they’re robust enough to provide good value in the long term.

With 1,000 lumens at full power, Lezyne's Lite Drive 1000XL provides more than enough brightness and beam spread for riding on unlit roads. You’ll only get around 80 minutes at this power, but dropping it down to the second highest output (which sits at 500 lumens) provides just under three hours of run time, which ought to be enough for even the longest of commutes.

Its CNC-machined aluminium build quality is excellent too, and its IXP7 waterproof rating is very welcome. The tough, rubber-band style mounting system makes adding/removing the lights a cinch, though they’re arguably a little less secure than ratcheted or bolt-mounted options.

The rear light puts out a slightly middling 75 lumens at full power, but does offer an impressive 270 degrees of visibility.

The PR900 front light is the real star of this set, offering a novel, twin-lens design and enough power to make it suitable for riding on unlit roads or even off-road.

The 900-lumen setting is more of an emergency turbo boost mode, but battery life on the 800-lumen setting is excellent, providing just over two hours of run time. It even has a USB port to allow you to use it as a battery pack to charge other gadgets (such as your phone, for example).

The rear light is sadly less impressive, packing only 20 lumens of light and a modest battery life. It's simple and versatile, thanks to its decent mounting system, but there are brighter lights available at this price.

Bike lights are split into two categories: those that provide enough illumination to enable you to clearly see what's ahead of you, and those that are designed to simply ensure that you’re seen by other road users – lights to see and lights to be seen, as it were.

Our bike light reviews are mainly focused on front lights that will enable you to see where you are going on unlit cycle paths or rural roads.

The power of a bike light is usually expressed in lumens. Lumens are the unit by which the total amount of light emitted from a source is measured.

Consequently, the amount of lumens a light offers tends to be the headline specification because a larger number essentially promises that the light will be brighter.

The power of some bike lights – usually dynamo-powered headlights and StVZO-compliant battery-powered lights – is expressed in lux. This is the measure of how much light falls on a surface.

Cyclists riding in lit urban areas, who don't need lights to illuminate the road ahead, may only need a unit with a few hundred lumens – but if you venture on to unlit roads or paths, that's unlikely to be enough, so you’ll need something more powerful.

For urban commuting, 200 lumens should be sufficient. We would suggest a front light with a minimum of 400 lumens for riding on unlit roads.

Don't be fooled into thinking that the lumen rating of a bike light is the only thing that matters, though. A super-bright light that only has enough battery power to put out that headline figure for half an hour isn't likely to be particularly useful, especially if you’ll need to use the most powerful setting for extended periods.

Make sure you check the claimed battery life at all of the various power levels to find the most suitable light for your style of riding.

It's worth mentioning at this point that, in the UK, bike lights are not subject to any upper limit in power. Lights must be able to emit at least four candela (another unit of light intensity), which is comfortably exceeded by modern lights. Flashing bike lights are also permitted within UK law.

The filament bulb is thankfully a thing of the past. Virtually all of today's high-end front lights have Cree LEDs, which offer better brightness, more versatility, less heat, longer life and are smaller.

Most rear lights now use COB LEDs. COB stands for ‘chip on board’ – essentially multiple LED chips forming a single module. They produce less heat, are brighter and can come in a variety of colours – but remember the law in most countries dictates a rear light must be red.

Unlike mountain bike lights, which often use dedicated external battery packs, lights for road bikes and commuting usually have internal batteries, so there's always going to be a trade-off between power, battery life and the size of the light.

For example, a more powerful light, with a longer battery life will require a physically larger battery and will therefore increase the overall size of the unit.

This isn't necessarily a problem in itself, but many road cyclists won't want something overly large to spoil the sleek looks of their road bike or clutter the handlebar. Likewise, some commuters will want lights that are small enough to be stuffed easily into a work bag.

For others, especially those who ride on unlit roads or enjoy particularly long rides and commutes, a larger light with more lumens and battery capacity will be essential.

Astute readers will notice that we have only covered battery-powered lights in this guide.

Dynamo-powered lights – which, most commonly, are powered by a generator hub built into a wheel – are a very popular option on touring and town bikes, and with good reason. They offer infinite run time and the optics in the lights are often very high quality.

However, they require a significant investment in terms of both money and research, and to cover both systems would be beyond the scope of this guide. We’ve covered bike dynamos in a separate explainer, including our pick of the best dynamo lights.

When buying a set of lights, it's also wise to consider the balance between the front and the rear.

The front light will almost always have much more power because its role includes lighting dark roads and cycle paths. However, while the outright lumen count of most rear lights won't come close to the front, the spec is just as important.

A rear light's main role is to help make you visible to other road users, so having decent brightness and battery life is essential because it needs to last the length of whatever ride you’re taking on while also being powerful enough for other road users to see it from a good distance.

Some lights are now also marketed for daytime use, with the appropriate brightness and flash patterns to help keep you seen in bright sunshine and low light.

Both front and rear lights should also balance range and peripheral lighting. A highly focused beam can be great for lighting the road in front of you for fast riding, but for the sake of both being able to spot hazards and to enable road users approaching from different angles to see you better, it's important that some of the light beam spreads into the periphery as well.

StVZO lights conform to German Road Traffic Licensing Regulations, with beam patterns shaped to avoid dazzling other road users.

You don't need to use StVZO-approved lights anywhere other than on German roads – however, if you ride solely on the road, investing in a StVZO light could be a good idea.

The narrow beam might not suit mountain bikers or bikepackers cycling at night, but there are more StVZO light options becoming available that let you change between high and low beams to get around this issue.

We’ve got a separate explainer on StVZO bike lights that runs through all the pros and cons.

In an ideal world, you would be able to have a mounting system that is perfectly simple, lightning-quick to install and remove, totally secure and infinitely durable… But in reality, there's usually a bit of a compromise between those various characteristics.

The simplest mounts use heavy-duty rubber bands and dedicated grooves on the light mount. These systems have the advantage of being extremely quick and easy to install and remove, and can usually be easily adjusted to different types and sizes of handlebar, seat posts, etc.

On the other hand, it's easy to lose these elastic bands when the lights aren't mounted on the bike and they’re more susceptible to movement over rough ground. Given long-term use, they’re also more likely to degrade and eventually break than a solid mount.

Solid plastic or metal mounting systems, which clip on to the handlebars and are secured with bolts, tend to offer much better security on bumpy roads as well as much greater long-term durability.

Installing or removing these types of mounts can often be a much more involved process though, sometimes even requiring a specific tool (such as a small hex key).

Usually, manufacturers will look to mitigate this inconvenience by making the light separately removable from the actual mount itself (so, for example, you can quickly take the light unit with you after locking up your bike), but not every light offers this function, so it's worth checking before you buy.

Waterproofing is important, particularly if you regularly ride in poor weather conditions. The IP Code is a measurement of protection against the ingress of water and dust. IP4 protects against splashing of water, while an IP7 product will survive immersion in water for 30 minutes.

Some front lights not only power their own LEDs but have USB ports that allow you to charge mobiles or GPS computers – particularly useful for long-distance riders.

Senior technical editor

Alex Evans is BikeRadar's senior mountain bike technical editor. He started racing downhill at the tender age of 11 before going on to compete across Europe. Alex moved to Morzine in the French Alps at 19 to pursue a career as a bike bum and clocked up an enormous amount of riding. Hitting those famous tracks day in, day out for eight years, he broke more bikes than he can remember. Alex then moved back to the UK and put his vast knowledge of mountain biking to good use by landing a job working for MBUK magazine as features editor. Since working for MBUK, Alex's focus has moved to bike tech. He's one of BikeRadar's lead testers and knows how to push bikes and products to the limit, searching out the equipment that represents the best value for money. Alex is also a dedicated eMTB rider, and still dabbles in racing of a sort, doing his best to top the Strava leaderboard on the steepest, gnarliest and twistiest trails the Tweed Valley has to offer – just for fun, of course. Alex is also a regular on the BikeRadar YouTube channel and BikeRadar podcast.

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