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My trusty Fibre Flare has just died, presuming due to water ingress. Any recommendations of tough rear bike lights?
Thanks,
Ben.
Are you looking for a high end, off road night ride type light or an LED commuter light?
For the former, I'd say something like a Hope District, for the latter the Cateye TL-LD610 is good.
I've just got an Exposure Flare. I'll let you know what it's like. Although from seeing other riders with the light, and at 75 lumens it's going to be good!
If you want to be seen get a Blacburn Mars 3. It's got side led's too.
Knog? Skully?
Use a Skully myself. V simple, cheap & bright.
RSP Astrum. 2 X 1/2 watt LEDS so bright as fudge and no water ingress after many wet rides.
Cateye Rapid 3 (£20). No water ingress after 20 wet miles yesterday. I like the Exposure Flare but don't think much of the mounting. I also have a rack-mounted B&M Toplight, and both run on AA batteries for ease of use.
I'll 2nd the RSP Astrum - stupidly bright and mine has survived being totally obscured with thick mud, water, road salt without any bother.
I run a Blackburn Mars 2 as well which has been great.
Just picked up an Electrons Backup USB Rechargable. Not mega bright but clear bodied so large area and I read a review where it had been washing machined and still worked. Battery life is awesome plus the USB rechargeable.
Exposure flare - without a doubt the best rear light I have ever owned.
why do you want a bright rear light for offroad - just to p1ss off the rider behind?
Exposure Flare would be the way to go. You can get it in a double pack with a reasonable front commuting light too.
Having a proper bright rear light is great. Leaves a huge pool of red light on the ground behind you.
Having a proper bright rear light is great. Leaves a huge pool of red light on the ground behind you
and the point of that offroad is ??? Do you look behind often to see what you have just ridden over???
Some of these lights are annoying enough when cycling behind in the city, but if it was really dark it woudl be way worse.
My prefferred strategy is something mega-bright (1/2 Watt or better), and something elde with side visability (TL-1100 or whtever). Adds a bit of redundancy. Prefer AA rechargables so I can keep spares in the bag for both lights. 2400+ mAh are pretty cheap and burn forever. Will be giving a Flare a go when the current 1/2 Watt dies......
Know what you mean turnerguy
I kept my stupidly bright Smart Luna back light on when we turned off-road on a night ride t'other week.
I got about quarter of a mile before the shout from behind. FFS! WILL YOU TURN THAT ****ING THING OFF!!!! 😀
Who said anything about off road?
I have to say I couldn't care less if a bright rear is annoying from behind whilst riding on road. The thing is there to make sure I can be seen.
I can't really see the point of the Flare rear light. It's (relatively) expensive and the burn time with rechargables is a pathetic 3 hrs. The batteries are non-standard so you need to splash more cash for a specific charger and batteries.
Something like the Blackburn Mars is more than powerful enough on the back for just over half the price with a 50 hour run time and uses standard AAA rechargables.