Exposure Strada – Opinions?

I currently have a Maxx-D front light that I use for off road; I’m tempted with the Strada for road duties due to its wide beam pattern.

Has anyone got both or done a side by side comparison?

Love mine. It’s one of the older ones. It has a wide beam but about the same lumens as my latest Joystick. The wide spread helps with perception. It makes a pretty good off-road light too.

Mate rates his – beam pattern a bit less blinding to oncoming cars than the Maxx D I have for dark lane commuting. I’d get one if I could afford one for road duties, but I’m a big Exposure fan anyway

I like it. It basically uses two beams: a very narrow spot like the latest Joystick plus a wide, flat beam that gives you close-up and side to side coverage without dazzling drivers. They’re always on together, but if you angle it just slightly to the left and fractionally below level, they seem good at not upsetting drivers and at the same time giving loads of quality illumination for road riding.

It also comes with the remote switch, which means you can ‘dip’ the light without taking your hand off the bars. I say ‘dip’ because all you’re doing is reducing power, not changing beam pattern, but it seems to work.

I’ve always hated using off-road lights on the road and having to angle them down a lot and still dazzling oncoming traffic, the Strada’s the first light I’ve been really comfortable with on the road.

I guess you could get a similar effect using a something like a Philips Saferide – really defined German-legal cut-off – and a separate Joystick spot if you wanted to, but the Strada has that nice all-in-one thing going on. Not cheap, but really very good.

Tempted by a Strada. Quick question for any users out there. Can you run both the remote switch and a Red Eye at the same time?

… and one other question. Heard mention that you can run them above or below the bars. How does this work with the beam pattern?

No, the remote switch and the Red Eye use the same Smartport, so it’s one or the other. One of the other Exposure lights, I think, has a wireless remote, but not the Strada.

The beam pattern is kind of horizontally elliptical, so it’s the same if you have the light upside down or the ‘normal’ way up if that makes sense. It doesn’t have a cut-off like the German lights, Saferide for example, which wouldn’t work upside down.

As above, just angle it very slightly to the left and down a little and it seems to work really well.

On the rear light front I just bought a TraceR rear light after my second Moon Shield started to go a bit random – the casing leaks eventually, stuff gets corroded, it stops working. So far really impressed with the TraceR. Very bright, programmable levels, nice pulse effect option and the burn time is a lot better than with the Moon, though the Shield’s good while it’s working and mine seem to last around two years of very frequent use before dying.

Thanks. Bit annoying that. Fancied running a remote and a red eye.

You could run a Red Eye directly from a Piggyback battery – that works – I find it more irksome that you can’t run a Piggyback and a remote control simultaneously let alone a Piggyback, a remote control and a Red Eye…

The Equinox has a wireless remote so you can run it with a Piggyback cell, but then it’s not a Strada,

Thanks BWD, I just wanted to be able to charge the one thing and run everything off that. Is annoying as the Exposure text suggests that you can plug all these things in at the same time…

SPT+ enabled lights automatically recognise accessories allowing you to power additional front and rear lights, use the Remote Switch and charge USB devices on the move.

Lots of “and” which sounds like it should be “or” 😕 Shall drop Exposure an email about it.