[Closed] Cheap light for road/gravel riding?

I've been using one of these and apart from the cheap bar mount, I ended up buying one of these and using the light with the supplied go-pro mount, hard to fault.

Halfords. Even their 1000 lumen thng is fine.

Ravemen’s great. I run a PR900 for road and a bit of gravel at the upper end so you could save yourself a few quid and buy a PR1200 rather than a 1600 if your night gravel rides are not too gnarly. In fact I get by just fine with light to spare on the 900, so I’d be delighted with 1200 around £70

As well as the two emitters/beam-patterns to choose from (road/dipped + MTB) in the same unit you also get a long battery life and a USB power bank function.

Add to that the LED meter (showing approx battery hours remaining)and all in all it’s a great unit IME.

I dropped my bike last year and it (Ravemen) survived a heavy smack (direct hit onto tarmac) with just a tiny dent in the alloy around the lens, the whole body is metal also. It’s extremely well-built.

The remote button (I use mounted near my thumb) is brilliant. If your path is getting sketchy then it not only cycles modes but also switches to ‘turbo’ by holding down. Useful also to signal/warn other road users.

I got mine from Tredz on offer last year but now they do a price match

Also I'd recommend getting an STVZO compliant front light for the road so you don't blind oncoming car drivers, and makes you as close to "legal" as you can get.  They're surprisingly effective on the road for their relatively low output.

The Ravemen's are good, do need angling down a little on the road though in spite of its diffused beam. This can be a bit of a problem if it's tight enough to stop it rattling down on rougher terrain (it's a bit nose-heavy) . Not a big issue unless you're caning it and need to see a long way ahead though.

Something like a sigma aura or B&M ixon or eyro should do the trick. I also run an STVZO rear light for good measure.

Something like a sigma aura

Nearly went for one of those but couldn’t find any useful reviews at the time, they certainly look the biz for road but I’d like to know how they also fair gravel-side of things

I'd imagine the STVZO lights wouldn't generally be too great on anything you need to pick a line in, they don't have any spread wider than a couple of metres really.  Look here for a range, upto the bonkers lupine one!

https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/best-stvzo-bike-lights/

Edit for typo

Also I’d recommend getting an STVZO compliant front light for the road

I've just bought a b+m one to go alongside my Ravemen. Having struggled home with a failing Knog Blinder when my Ravemen suddenly lost all power (the predicted runtime was wrong on its first outing after summer), I thought I'd try one as a road-friendly backup.

I have a 1200lm Ravemen. Pleased with it,
although the bracket isn’t great.

I’ve just bought a b+m one to go alongside my Ravemen

I have a B+M but I stupidly dropped it, and now it won’t stay shut. I taped it up but I still need to get inside to swap the batteries over when they need charging.

TLDR: Don’t drop it, because the construction (on mine at least) is a bit flimsy.

Cateye Ampp 1100? A lot of lumens for £60 and they've now gone back to their original bracket that has always been great, rather than the rubber things that were, well, rubbish.

I'm still using one of their front lights from ten years ago with the same bracket.

Just bought a raveman 1600 for less than 100 quid. Looks to come with a far better remote than my exposure. If it ends up being a better light I’ll be a bit aggrieved!

Bikehut 1000, does the job just keep the receipt in case.

although the bracket isn’t great.

For some reason can’t remember I have two different style brackets for mine. The one with a thumbwheel-tighten, and one with just an allen-bolt (below)

This clamp is the better of the two, IME. In my experiments with either one success seems almost entirely dependent on installing the shiny black rubber strip correctly inside of the clamp. I manage a good solid grip on the bar, but agree the bracket itself could be better (and directional)

Ended up mounting the thumbscrew clamp on a fork-crown bracket. It works but find that I need to retighten from time to time when the ambient temperature changes drastically 🥶🥵

I thought about changing it to an Exposure bracket by bodging an Exposure cleat on to the underside of the unit. It’s easy to remove the stock cleat from the PR series (two small allen screws iirc) so don’t see it being too much of a major DIY to fit an alternative of choice? Warranty-voiding tho it may be.

For road and light gravel it seems functional as supplied tho, tbh. I’ve used much worse.

https://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/LIPXSMH2W/planet-x-super-mini-2-way-200-lumen-bike-helmet-light

First time she rides with you will be the last time she uses the cheap light.

You'll then be buy yourself another Exposure.

Alpkit?
https://alpkit.com/collections/bike-lights

I have an old Hadron and it's been good for 2 years. But tempted by new one as everything is in the body, good range of lights, decent price and assume a proper warranty.

I've got a couple of the Moon Meteor Storm Pro's used across a few bikes. Oldest one is on its 3rd winter now, used twice weekly. Think they around 1600 lumens on full, and will do 2 hours on a mid setting, with still 50% battery remaining.

Can usually pick them up for £50-70

I’m also using a Moon Meteor storm Pro.

Great output and at lower light levels there’s plenty of battery. The clamp is also very secure.

Wouldn’t really be good enough for solo off road excursions, but road/gravel... great

£70 notes in the constant sales.

I've just picked up a ravemen pr1200 and really like it. The road mode is great and I use it for that frequently, I also use the mtb mode for night rides in Delamere forest and it's plenty bright enough.

I use The Planet X Strix - cost me about £15 a year ago. Does a good job on the gravel routes on my commute. Definitely value for money.
Still use a Hope Vision One which must be at least 15 years old on another bike.

Raveman 1200 works well on the commute. Only using at bimble speeds, but beam pattern is good. The high beam throws a decent amount of light down the road if speeds pick up. The remote scrolls through the levels, would have been better if it switched between high beam and dipped