Best bike lights: Front, rear & auxiliary lights for cycling

You may need the highest power output when riding off-road, where there are more obstacles. But a lower power mode will often be sufficient and your eyes will adjust to the dimmer light level. The reality is it’s unlikely you need your bike light to be this bright.

Look for lights with weatherproof seals and solid construction, as well as non-slip attachments. You’ll also want an easily removable light body for charging and theft prevention, battery indicator lights, or sounds to alert you when it’s time to Double O® recharge the system. Lastly, look for a light with an IPX water-resistance rating of 5 or higher (anything lower and a splash, spray, or spritz is as much as they can handle). All of the lights tested in this article are rechargeable via some variety of a USB port. Dynamo-powered headlights can emit over 700 lumens which is more than enough power for cycling at night on urban or unlit roads.

The standard also helps to understand whether something is just is ‘weather-resistant’ or ‘waterproof. Neither one is more important than the other and lights should never be purchased on either of these metrics alone. Often confused and misunderstood Lux and Lumen offer very different metrics on the performance of your light. Lux measurements are taken when the total light hitting an object is measured for its luminance. Lumens measures the total light emitted in all directions over a given distance.

Specialized Flash 300 Bike Headlight

The cutoff beam is fine on fire roads, but in tricky terrain you’re going to want a classic cone shape so you can see if there are trees/rocks/cliff edges coming up fast. Bike lights are a necessity for many of us, but in my opinion they can be as transformative for your winter riding as mudguards and proper winter layering. If you are truly forgetful about remembering to charge then this is for you.

Having logged a ton of gravel and dirt miles with this light, our tester felt extremely confident about the light staying fixed in place and experienced zero issues. For diehard commuters who ride to work in the rain, sleet, and snow, it’s critical to have a light that truly can stand up to anything the elements throw at it. Light & Motion’s claim to fame is their waterproof, virtually indestructible lights. Lindsay Warner is a freelance writer reporting on cycling gear for Wirecutter. She has written for such publications as Dwell, Outside, National Geographic, and Forbes, and she also works as an occasional copywriter for Ben & Jerry’s.

The taillight has at least five modes, including multiple tempos of flash. If you’re looking for a full suite of bike lights, the CatEye SYNC collection is pretty nifty. All of the lights synchronize, so when you click one on, the others turn on as well.

CarBack and Varia are also daytime running lights that are visible from 2 kilometers away during the day. In essence, these devices help you see cars, and help drivers see you. There are vast differences between cheap lights and purpose-built bike lights. Everything from run time to beam pattern to mode settings to durability and weather-proofness are superior in lights specifically made for cycling. Taking a cheap light made for another application and somehow strapping it to your bike will usually result in a lackluster experience or an annoying outright fail. There is a wireless remote control that can be handlebar mounted; the remote features two buttons that can be configured to control multiple lights.

Knog Mid Cobber Rear Bike Light

The Lumina’s 900 lumens provide both solid spread and reach/distance for city commuting and offer plenty of visibility for you, other cyclists, pedestrians, and vehicles. At the very least, you WILL be seen if you’re sporting the Lumina 900. During testing it became apparent that this light is designed for easy commutes. The Lumina clips on and off the mount in a flash which is awesome for high-traffic areas where theft may be an issue, but that convenience comes at a cost (more on that in a minute). At about $80 for 1,100 lumens of light — two-thirds of a car headlight’s brightness — the Lezyne Lite Drive 1000XL  isn’t the least expensive light on the list.

It’s really very impressive what Magicshine has done with this light, so let’s run through each of the features in turn. This light is really the star performer on test – it’s the least expensive by quite a way, super bright and nicely designed. In all, the Trek Commuter Pro RT is a good light with lots of neat little features and functionality.

The Mk17 Race has now been replaced by the Mk18, but we still rate this older model. The light beam illuminates the centre of the road ahead, but there’s also a good flood of sideways light. Our tester Paul Norman found the light lasted closer to 2hrs in the maximum power mode. For good quality bicycle lights, we would expect to see a minimum of IPX-5. However ideally you should aim for IPX-6 as this will be a decent guarantee that water will not cause any issues with your device.

Plus they’re IPX6-rated, meaning they’re sufficiently waterproof to use on rainy rides. When paired with a high-end light, a dynamo system can generate more than 700 lumens of steady output, to effectively light up the road ahead for several car lengths. This version of the Blinder light still includes the integrated USB-A fin that we found so clunky in previous tests. You can’t detach the fin from the taillight, and that can make plugging the light into a bank of USB slots difficult—sometimes the base of the fin is too wide for the slot.

The Strada is an investment, but it packs so much into one light it easily justifies the price tag. Incredible battery life, bombproof, and it can automatically dip the beam when it senses car headlights. If you’re looking for an inexpensive light with a solid mounting system and a durable build, the Thunderbolt is worth a look. But there are more powerful lights with better run times that don’t cost that much more than Serfas’s option.