GROUP TEST

Whether you’re a night-riding newbie or darkness is an old friend, a high-output light will help you ride fast and stay safe

Trail lights – 15 bar-mounted lights ridden through the night to find out if they blaze a trail of glory or fade into the darkness

If you’ve never ridden at night, you’re missing out. It feels like you’re travelling at warp speed, and the woods and moors are beautifully tranquil and empty. That is, until your mate Dave farts so loudly it stirs the nearby badger sett. What kind of kit do you need to make it fun and safe, then?

Generally, the brighter your lights are, the better it’s going to be – you’ll be able to see more of the trail, obstacles will pop out at you instead of being shrouded in shadow and speed will come naturally. We set a lower limit of 1,500 claimed lumens for this test, which is ample for safe shredding. You may be able to get away with less, depending on how fast you want to go and how technical the trails are.

The number of lumens that a manufacturer claims their light has can vary significantly from its actual measurable output, but what’s more important is how it performs on the trail, where the LED colour, beam pattern and lens types have as much effect as its outright power. Some lights illuminate a specific area with exceptional detail, but at the sacrifice of broader coverage. Those that ‘flood’ their output light up more of your surroundings and highlight details that are easily missed with a more focused ‘spot’ beam. The wider spread of light makes it easier to see around turns too – useful if you can only afford one light, rather than having one on the bar and one on your helmet, which is what we’d recommend. Lights with multiple lenses or beam reflectors can combine spot and flood outputs, in theory offering the best of both worlds.

Run times don’t necessarily live up to brands’ claims either. We timed each light on max power to find out just how long the juice will last. All those in this test can be run at 1,500 lumens or above for at least an hour. Most offer considerably more burn time. If not, consider buying a spare battery.

The lights on test range from £130 to over £400. It’s possible to spend even more or a bit less, but with a 1,500-lumen lower limit this is the sort of price bracket you’re looking at, unless you’re considering buying an eBay special, in which case you won’t get the same back-up if things go wrong.