Ahh, the changing of the season. No longer is Fresh Goods full of beautiful summery things; no, here at Singletrack we’ve started to get in more kit for the ‘other’ half of the year. With mud tyres being tested in the next issue of Singletrack Magazine (Issue 69, out October 20th) it means it’s time to get testing the next thing we’ll need to survive the night riding months – yup, bike mounted portable suns…
Lupine Piko 3 Light
Lupine are well know for their bonkers high quality, high output bike lights, but this is the baby of the range. The Piko pumps out 750 Lumens from the two CREE XM-L LEDS that suck up 10W of power and give a 22° beam angle. The case is made from shot peened CNC aluminium. There are bar and helmet mounting options and we’ve got a 5.6Ah hardcase battery with built in battery level indicator.
Price: £325
From: Zyro
Lupine Wilma 6 1500 Lumen 26°
Stepping it up a notch or eight is the Wilma, which offers three different options for power and beam spread. One gives 1,200 Lumens output and a far throwing 16° beam for high speed riding, one with 1,300 Lumens and a 22° beam spread and then there’s this, the 1,500 Lumen model which gives a wide 26° beam to light up the biggest area possible. Even on full power you’ll get a reported two and a half hours of runtime from the 5.6Ah battery pack and it claims to take just two hours and forty fives minutes to charge up in the first place…
Price: £475
From: Zyro
Lumicycle LED3 XPG ATL Elite 26 Light
The Lumicycle The LED3 XPG blasts out 1,340 Lumens (400 Lux at 5m donchaknow) from three CREE LEDs. The lens aims to gives a medium beam spread but we like it because it looks a bit like a fly’s eye. The light uses a 2.6Ah battery pack and is said to give two hours output on the maximum setting but a more useable four hours if you can make do with a mere 950 Lumens. Head and bar mounts are included.
Price: £275
From: Lumicycle
NiteRider Pro 1500 LED Race Light
Guess how many lovely Lumens this puts out? Yup, a whole 1,500 units of lightness. Perfect for giving any badgers you meet long lasting blindness as well as lighting your way down the trails. This is the Race model, which comes with a four cell, 5.2Ah battery and three pre-set brightness levels. That gives a total runtime of one and half hours on maximum output, but a ‘DIY’ version is also available, which has an additional two cells to give 8.7Ah and two and half hours of light at full power.
Price: £324.99
From: 2Pure
NiteRider MiNewt Pro 750 Light
Apart from squirting out 750 Lumens of bright, bright light from a single CREE LED, the dinky MiNewt 750 Pro now has the power control mounted on the lamp rather than the battery to make choosing one of the four power levels simpler. It’ll mount on bars or helmet and the 2.6Ah Li-Ion battery will give 1.5 hours at maximum power.
Price: £234.99
From: 2Pure
NiteRider MiNewt Mini 300 USB Light
Offering 300 Lumens and a two hour runtime for a smidge under £90, this should be a good place to start if you want to dabble in the waters of night riding or if you need a backup light to mount to your helmet. The 2.6Ah battery can be charged with a wall socket or via USB, so if you are badly organised you can top it up during work for going out in the evening.
Price: £89.99
From: 2Pure
There’s a rather snazzy video of the 2012 NiteRider bike lights range on YouTube if you want to check out the rest of their offerings…
MTBbatteries.co.uk 1,000 Lumen Bike Light
This does very much what it says on the tin – 1,000 Lumens from a single CREE T6 XM-L LED. The battery is a 4.4Ah Li-Ion item which gives a reported three hours run time at maximum output, with an LED on the rear of the lamp to warn you when the battery is running low. It uses an O-ring to mount it on the bars and a helmet strap as well. Best bit? The price…
Price: £67
From: MTBBatteries.co.uk
Intense Spider2 29
The latest version of Intense’s big wheeled cross-country bike takes more than a few design cues from its longer travel siblings, the Tracer 2 and T29. There’s the asymmetric back end with interchangeable G1 dropouts that make it compatible with either 135mm QR or 142x12mm Syntace, the new easy-to-extract lower bearing system and all the detail you’ve come to expect, including dropper post guides. The VPP suspension system has the option to run 108mm or 120mm of rear wheel travel and up front you can use 120mm or 100mm forks in the tapered 1.125 to 1.5″ headtube. The lovely root beer finish here is a standard colour too…
Price: £1,799 frame & shock
From: Extra UK
This one is kitted out with a Shimano XT 3×10 drivetrain, Easton finishing kit including EA90 XC 29″ wheelset…
Tapered headtube with a set of 15QR Fox 32 Float RLC 29 forks…
Note the second shock mounting position to adjust the rear wheel travel. Direct Mount front mech
Lezyne CNC Pedal Rod
While some think that a tool is the utmost expression of function over form, we reckon that’s utter nonsense. Everyone like some pretty man-toys and this is about as good looking as a pedal spanner can get. The handle is made from a hollow piece of CNC machined aluminium and the head is made from heat-treated, stamped steel. As well as a pair of 15mm pedal spanner cutouts, it also has a handy beverage opener for freeing the most recalcitrant bottles of beer.
Price: £25.99
From: Upgrade Bikes
Shimano M162 SPD Shoes
These are the successors to the M161 Trail shoes, which provided a good mix of pedalling stiffness, weather proofing and sat quite happily between their racey shoes and more skate styled efforts. The M162 has had a thorough going over, with the offset velcro straps seen on the high end Shimano race shoes making an appearance, as well as a tougher outsole with rubber protective bumpers. There are plenty of other nice touches too, with the option to fit studs for mud traction and the raised inner ankle should protect you nicely. They’re designed to be the perfect match to the range of ‘Trail’ SPD pedals shimano currently offer…
Price: £99.99
From: Madison
Seeing as canines are outnumbering staff in the office lately, we’ve decided to forgo staff humilation and put them on a very depressed looking Gyp instead. He doesn’t even ride bikes…
Comments (30)
Comments Closed
FGF before 8am? What the hell is happening? I usually have to wait until after I’ve had my fish butty!
Who has fish for breakfast?
Well that’s gone and ruined my Friday, I’ve nothing to look forward to now, work is going to be unbearable!
“Well that’s gone and ruined my Friday, I’ve nothing to look forward to now, work is going to be unbearable!”
I agree, this has messed up my schedule good and proper, i’ve peaked too early 🙂
I’m sorry but some of the prices for those lights are ridiculous. I just don’t see the value of them.
the boys want an early finish today probably, it’s been a long week with the cycleshow last weekend 😉
I assumed Jenn was back from holiday and being organising 😉
‘organised’, even.
Call into local dog rescue for Gyp. He doesn’t look impressed.
Why do lights have to have so many power settings to toggle through? My Ayup helmet light is either on or off and my Exposure Toro has 3 but at least they’re in a closed loop so I’m not going to have to deal with off or flashing while trying to find the setting I want.
Does anyone ever ride with their light flashing?
Does anyone ever ride with their light flashing?
Casualties of the 1980’s rave scene?
Someone better tell Lezyne its 2011 and 90% of pedals are now allen-key only fit.
At the risk of being flamed, I ride with my lights flashing. I have a 10 mile commute with traffic to contend with.
Trust me, anything that makes the other road users notice me is a good thing. And I like the fact I can have one set of lights for both the commute and the occasional night ride after work.
Especially handy is an Ay-up helmet light facing rearwards with Saxon caps on to give a nice strong red flashing light for people approaching from behind.
We don’t all have separate commute and fun riding kit, so anything that can handle both is a good thing in my eyes.
Oh, and fish for breakfast? Kippers, kedgeree or smoked salmon with scrambled eggs and brown bread are all breakfast favourites in my household.
😉
And 90% of my pedals are either Allen or flat spanner fit. The only set that is only Allen key fit is the set from 1998…
IGMC…
We used to have a dog called Gyp – he didn’t ride bike either
Smoked salmon,scrambled eggs on toasted crumpets….
Shame it’s only a tin of beef broth soup for lunch..oh well.
Go and get Gyp an sausage sandwich. that’ll cheer him up.
Am I the only person who finds shocks not lining up with the seat stays just looks wrong?
I ride with my lights flashing, but only when it’s light enough to not have a light but still isn’t great visibility. However, most people I see commuting use the flashing mode, so I’d say I’m in a minority for using constant mode.
Did you take that Intense pic on Saturday? Thats my boat in the background!!
Don’t do a lights grouptest. So boring. I’d rather have a mediocre piece of reportage than 6 pages of discussion of bulbs and battery mounts.
Mr Stu..
Am I the only person who finds shocks not lining up with the seat stays just looks wrong?
Yep looks wrong – like something has broken.
No troutie lights 🙁
I’m starting to like the look of 29″ bikes now, they are starting to nicer or am I just slowly convincing myself that it’s time for another bike?
just bought the Lumicycle light. Very nice.
lights with separate battery packs – and super expensive – seem soooo last century! Exposure all the way baby!
Why is it you buy some nice new lights and then the manufacturer ups the output by 50% in the very same season? Botheration.
108 or 120 rear travel ? why would you ever bother to change it ?
Looks great, however.