I am thinking of getting these for night riding on my road bike.

Does anyone have any experience of these? Are they good / bad?

Cheers

If you want to see where your going they’re not great.

They’re ok, to be seen lights rather than to see.
The threaded plastic lamp unit is very easy to cross thread and will crack if you slightly overtighten it.

ok, thanks guys

the rear is pretty good.

You might as well get a normal mtb light for the front

I’ve been using these for commuting, they are great to be seen lights. If you’re riding on unlit roads i’d get an additional front light to see with.

I didn’t rate mine at all.

Easy to cross thread, have to remove batteries to charge them so regular risk of cross threading.

Plus the front light is visible from all around, so when you are riding along you catch the light which affects your forward vision.

And they are bloody expensive.

As above, they are excellent be seen lights, and the rear light is amazingly bright. I don’t think there is muc else out there that works as well. I had to return my first rear light as it wouldn’t stay in flashing mode. I exchanged for a 2013 model, however now the thread is so tight it has to be removed from the mount each time you turn on or off using both hands. A minor annoyance, hopefully it will wear in with time.

Used the flash as a helmet light for daily commuter and night rides; light wise was great on flash and at a push lit up country lanes ok for road use. The plastic lamp bit threads just wore out (soft plastic in that alu body requires very gentle handling if you are a regular user) and the light would just pop out after about a year. Several emails to exposure to enquire about a replacement, went totally without answer. Hence, i’m now looking at hope or trout for a new posh light.

I’ve had a set for a couple of years – right from when they came out. Worked fine for about 18-20 months then kept cutting out.

Sent back to Exposure, repaired FOC (2yr warranty) and they worked fine then about 6-8 months later the cutting out started again.

So I bought the new, revised Flash/Flare set from Wiggle which arrived – neither light worked at all. Sent back to Wiggle who shipped out a new set which worked fine. By this point, my old set were extremely temperamental but a bit of swapping lenses with light bodies and some cleaning of the contacts means I now have two rears, one front and one complete dud.

When they work they’re brilliant, incredibly bright and great commuting lights. The quality and reliability is rather variable though and the plastic lens cap needs careful handling not to cross thread it. Having said that, Exposure’s customer service is very good IME.

Great commuting lights, great to be seen lights.

If you’re going anywhere without streetlights, use an additional/different front light.

As above, great for being seen on busy or faster roads, but not necessarily for seeing with on dark ones.

Back light is the best I have had over the years in terms of battery life versus brightness and the flash function on the back is good: it is always “on” but pulses extra bright on top of this of you have it on flash function, but I’ve only had it since the summer so I can’t comment on longevity. I put some silicon grease on the threads of the light (you switch it on like a maglight) and hopefully this will mitigate against rain ingress (although there is also a rubber seal in there) and thread wear. The stretchy silicon/rubber thing to attach it to your seatpost is great but I had to put a ruber band around the light itself to stop it rattling inside the mount.

Unless you get a great deal on both (irritatingly you can only get the charger and rechargeables bundled in if you by both for 80-odd quid) I would get a bigger brighter road-specific light for the front and se what works out as a good deal for the rear. The front one shines equally all round so whichever way you put it in the mount some of the light is wasted going upwards and sideways, and as it is so tiny and uses a small battery the advantages are reduced bar clutter and weight not overall brightness.

This thread last week had some good ideas about front lights specially for road riding.

I have the Flare, it’s an excellent light and has served me very well for a couple of years.

I did initially have trouble with it freeing itself on off-road rides, I hooked an o-ring through and under the saddle rails as a belt and braces fix but typically it’s never fallen off since.

There’s also a nice bracket you can buy that attaches to the rails and pushes it up underneath the saddle. Saves marking the post long term, but obviously not good if you’re using a pack.

Ex-Flare user here
Returned once for repair after owning for 12 months (so about 5 months actual use) – Stopped working again shortly after it came back.
Decided to get it back to them for repair or replacement again here so went straight to exposure, they haven’t got back to me yet.

Good idea on the light. Poor execution IMO

I like mine….

(hope that’s not cursed them…)

The rear is particularly good. Half of my commute is on twisty country lanes, where drivers can go a little quick, and come up behind you too fast to see you in time. The brighter rear certainly alleviates that.

As others have said, the Flash needs to be regarded as a “be seen” light. OK under the street lighting, useless (on it’s own) in the proper dark

the Flare is a great rear light.
I’ve used mine for a year with no issues mentioned above.

Mine have been great for a year…just starting to crap out now. Exposure are being useless at contact. Really unimpressed at them, but the lights are good.

My Flash and Flare are on their second winter. To echo some opinions / experiences above:

1. Flash is a good “be seen” light. I use it in low light, but once the clocks go back, I switch to something meatier to handle full dark commutes. Note that the output is much higher on rechargeable batteries.
2.Flare is an ace rear light, really bright. Mine developed a fault recently where it would switch from “pulse” to “steady” after about fifteen minutes. Serviced FOC by Exposure and fine now.
3. Exposure customer service is very good.

I also had a charger issue (mine went bang with a pretty blue flash). Again, replaced FOC by Exposure. I’ve not had any issues with thread wear, but I also used a little silicon grease on the threads from new.

smell_it – I had an issue sending emails to Exposure. I phoned them and they were very helpful and sorted out my problem. A few weeks later one of the emails was returned, with a note saying that the email address didn’t exist.

I would ring Exposure rather than email them. If you have warranty stuff ask for George. I do not know what happens to their email but you can actually ring them up and speak to a real person. I know that’s a bit wierd and doesn’t give one the chance to sound off on the Interwebz (when there is a person who stands behind their product and will sort it), but there you go.

I have just had a red eye replaced on warranty no hassle.

If the battery rear is as bright then I have not used anything else that comes close, motorists definitely give you more room.

Should the amount of stories of warranty returns here be of concern, or is it just to be expected of a popular brand used in inclement conditions? I seem to have lost more lights than I’ve broken/had fail.

Total rubbish – bad design and bad quality
Had the rear one for commuting on a folder – mounting band broke soon after purchase but Evans gave me another one, then switch started playing up and light randomly switched off which is obviously pretty special on a rear.

Mounting bracket can’t be adjusted for angle and gets knocked sideways as it sticks out so far , battery is a stupid size and expensive – in fact light is overpriced massively. i bought it as I thought that exposure would bring thier quality on offroad lights to the commuter market

So that was wrong!

I too like mine for commuting, but I also have a Joystick which provides the necessary light to see by on the short stretch of my commute that has no street lights.

I got mine last year. The charger died quite early on but was quickly replaced by Exposure/USE.

I can add to the woes.

They are a great commuting light. So much so that I run them in the day time too.

My first set, the rear lost it’s flash and I would often get home to find it had cut out.

I got a warranty repair and now this set is doing the same (was very dim when I got in this morning, flicked it and the full beam appeared).

Whilst the warranty is good and I know it will be sorted, what am I supposed to do in the mean time!? I’ll have to buy another set of lights to cover me whilst they are repaired again 🙄

MM

I am impressed with the flare back light but have swapped the flash front light with the spark which seems much better especially on full power but then I only have a couple of unlit areas on my commute. The spark does have it’s issues such as not staying on full power in flash mode but that is another isuue.

Have been using a Flash & Flare since last autumn, my commute takes in some unlit rural roads and tbh I find the Flash adequate if set to steady mode (tho I’ve got a pretty good idea of where the potholes are). Noted that the spring on the Flash was considerably more springy than the spring on the Flare when new, and had worries about cross threading the lamp unit. Leave the unit assembled with a battery in for a few weeks tamed the spring enough, so few concerns about cross threading now. So that’ll be me cross threading next time I Need to charge batteries then…

Oh, and btw – have had several following riders complain about the brightness of the Flare. Esp. when set in flash mode…

I was waved down by a London bus and the driver (who also cycled) said it was fantastic and could see me coming from miles away.

More woes. Rear packed up just out of warranty. Up to that point I had to continually adjust the internal spring so it did not cut out.

I really like Exposure lights, I’ve got a joystick and would really like the bigger ones as well.

But as good as the Flash/Flare look and work I’d go for a Moon Shield/Gem combo instead.

Smaller, maybe brighter and but definitely less of a faff to charge.

As above – mine kept cutting out; brilliant (literally!) when working but I couldn’t trust it so replaced it with a different make.

I’ve also had a flare for just over 1-year. Great and very bright when it works. However now switches itself off randomly whilst riding and comes back on when flicked. The number of similar responses about reliability suggest a quality or design issue.