LIGHTS

If you want to keep riding on work days during the winter, you’ve got two options. Move to the Southern hemisphere or buy a set of lights. And while the former is appealing if it means heading somewhere like New Zealand, the latter is more affordable and a lot more practical. Night riding also adds a frisson of danger and excitement to proceedings by intensifying the sense of speed as you narrow your focus on the tunnel of lights in front of you. It literally lets you see your local trails in a whole new light.

From decades of testing, we believe the best set-up combines a bar light with a helmet light. A fixed handlebar light is your workhorse light, it illuminates the trail so you can see where to go. The helmet light is a bit more dynamic for picking out the detail, adding depth, looking round corners and over obstacles like logs and drops, and even down at your gears or front wheel when there’s a technical section.

In terms of power, we’d recommend a bar light with around 1,500 to 2,000 lumens (lumen is the measure of light output, the higher the better). Helmet lights don’t need to be as powerful; you can get away with 700-900 lumens, but this light needs to be a bit more focused or concentrated.

These requirements will vary if you ride with a group of mates because following a rider allows you to use their light as a guide, and if you end up riding in front, the lights of the riders behind shine past you to illuminate the trail ahead of you, although your own shadow can be a problem. However, if you ride on your own you will need to increase the amount of lumens, and that means a bigger, more powerful and expensive set-up.

It’s really crucial that the run time of both lights is the same because you don’t want one of them fading halfway round a ride.

In terms of price, style and power, there is no shortage of choice. We’ve tested nine bar lights and three helmet lights in various price categories, but you can easily mount half of the handlebar lights on a helmet so there’s a lot of versatility and choice available for the night rider.

EXPOSURE MAXX D MK13

£385

SPECIFICATION Weight: 342g • Lumen: 4,000, 2,500, 750 • Run time 2, 6, 12hr • Contact: exposurelights.com

Like all Exposure lights, the Maxx D MK13 is self-contained with the LEDs and Li-Ion battery all housed in the machined aluminium body. The good thing is