Super Cheap Vs Super Light | What's The Difference?

We all want to get our money's worth when it comes to mountain bike products, but just how good are cheap bike lights compared to performance models? We sent Neil and Blake on a night ride with a range of mountain bike lights to find out... 🔦

In association with Exposure.

How many lights do you use on a night ride? 🤔

Watch more on GMBN...

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[gmbn]

Any bright ideas 💡 for our next versus?

[Zeus-busp]

Hold The £400+ light is better than the £30 light... Unbelievable 🤣

[Spokes]

$610?!?!? That’s more then half the price of my bike lol

[callumharding]

I'm not sure this helps much. Obviously the EBay lights are dodgey. The cheap lights I'd want to know about are the branded ones closer to £100 with outputs around 1500 lumens +. £300 is still a lot of money even if it is mid range. Biking is already expensive enough as it is.

[Wisselwerking]

It's a bit to obvious that this video is an ad. There are a lot of cheap lights that work a whole lot better than the cheap light in the video.

[stevebrowning]

This is exactly what’s going wrong with mountain biking, if your not riding a £6k bike with a £500 light on, dripping in Fox kit, you can’t possibly be enjoying yourself. Putting videos out like this, only makes people feel inadequate, I bump into loads of younger riders, having a ton of fun with there mates, but they all say “ I’m having a new whatever, for Xmas/birthday etc” as if they feel they should be riding top end stuff. Stop trying to exclude people! Shame on you

[Nomads_Rowing]

Hi guys,
Great video as usual BUT we all cannot afford the ridiculous price of the Exposure yet definitely want to stay clear of the next to useless Cree. Surely a comparison of recommended lighting available going up in £50 steps would be much more beneficial to us mere mortals on a budget?

[Desa]

Honestly, i think those 400+ (Pound/Euro) Lights are a ripoff. I come from a hunting background and we rely on sturdy, bright and good lights. I've noticed that in the last 2 years those superexpensive lights flooded the market but they are not worth it.
A good torchlight is about 100 bucks (the more you pay, the more you get e.g. Bluetooth). Shatterproof and water resistant, good battery life and so an. A suited mount costs about 20-50 and you can get it often as a bundle by the lights-manufacturer.
So you are at 150 and have a really good and sturdy light for your bike.
The lights tested are good - don't get me wrong. But they are not 400 bucks good compared to the lights in the outdoor/hunting market.

[ianrobinson]

Terrible video, if Exposure are paying for the advertisement as the video suggests at the start at least give the cheaper options a fair chance. not exactly a balanced review.

[ferrata]

I used the Chinese Cree lights for the Strathpuffer 2 year's ago and no problems. Plenty of light and the battery lasted 2 laps between charges. Everything was delivered in perfect working order and the rubber band even held the light in place although I have now changed it to a proper bar mount. I appreciate you get what you pay for but £400 is too much for the average person on average trail riding at night.

[felixjackson]

Been doing weekly Mtn bike night rides for 5 winters using Cree Chinese lights costing £20 with no prob.Of course if one of you impartial bike testers wants to give me a £400 light to use then many thanks.

[bertchalmers]

I understand this is a sponsored content video but come on. It's amazing how the Ebay special was suddenly a hell of a lot bright when you rode off after the power test at the start! - I'm not claiming it is near the 45, 000 lumens but its a lot closer to the Exposure than you're making out. Personally I run Ebay specials (solarstorn X2 or X3) and they give amazing power and coverage and I've had over 4 years of commuting out of the X2. In fact its so bright I've got in stopped by the police when I put them on my road bike. Anyway To refer to Blake's dismissal of the 'More advanced than a car light' - that wouldn't be hard, a lot of cars still use filament bulbs rated for one output.

[roilev]

Very biased video, did you have to get the worst possible bike light to put against your sponsors? There are far better flashlights and batteries for the same price as the clown of the light you chose! Screw for a power supply, come on? There are waterproof battery packs with LG 18650 batteries, there are (again waterproof) battery packs that you can put your own batteries in, and have nice elastic straps that you can put the pack within the front triangle and stay sturdy -- I actually prefer the separate battery and small and light flashlight on the handlebar than having a huge and heavy flashlight that I often hit with my knees or get in the way of the handlebar operation!
About the 10+ diode lights, they are plain stupid. I have tested a couple of lights with multiple diodes, and the more diodes you add, you only increase the consumption, the light emitted goes up by a single digit % - you need a flashlight with 5-6 diodes to match two single-diode lights.
And the one you chose is plain wrong. The XM-L diode at full power is delivering around 1000 lumen. But this one cannot provide enough juice for so many diodes, so they most probably work at much lower output, probably around 500lm. So it theoretically cannot provide the stated output. Another issue with so many diodes is the reflector each one gets, is so small, that is next to worthless. I suppose two single-diode XM-L2 flashlights would outperform it, and last at least 5 times longer.
But XM-L is getting old now, 6+ years old - and technology moves faster. There are new diodes, XHP50/70 that consume much less than multi-diode flashlight but will most definitely outperform the noname diodes in the ridiculously expensive exposure you used. I have XHP70 for $30 and 6 battery pack for $20. Buying quality cells (LG, Panasonic), you can get a dozen for $30 so you'll have spare batteries to change when the first batch dies. $80 is still much less than whatever options the sponsors provide. Yes, the flashlight is big and a bit heavy (but still lighter than those with integrated batteries), but they provide different length of elastic bands to mount them with, so they won't wiggle. There are screw-in mounts too, for a couple of $
In fact I can buy 3 flashlights, ($90), 6 battery packs ($120) and 36 cells ($90) and still get a change to buy a decent helmet light. And replace whatever breaks - unlike that you have to replace the whole all-in-one flashlight if anything goes wrong with it.
But I understand that putting these against your sponsor kit won't please them as using the worst possible lights...

[fud]

I've using a CREE Light for years, the smaller one with just 2 led's....Bought a much better Battery, 4hrs of Battery life, and it work's fine...Total cost 40 Quid...!!...

[jaysealenduro]

I got a cheap solarstorm x2 light 4400mah stock battery is not enough for my 2 to 3 hour nightrides so i just by a 9600mah battery pack and it last 2 to 3 hours on high mode and using it for 2 years no problem

[ivosekzaplet]

the prices of the lights are really way 2 much.. you can buy nice and 50 quid price light

[leebridgwater]

Diablo, just love it. The tap feature is spot on....

[Phil_Guy]

I'm sorry I love you guys to bits But I'm going to stick up for the cheap lights here. As a group we ride every Tuesday night. Most of us have Magishine Cree lights sub £100. They are amazing lights £80 gives you a full 2 hours on full beam 4 hours on medium. I have a bar mounted and a head mounted lamp 1000 lumins each. The lamp I have ran for three years now and changed the battery pack on one of them. The lamp is light weight the battery pack can be slung under your top tube. I understand that you are sponsored by Exposure and they are a great lamp. But the small cheaper lights have their place.

[SWFBrickbox]

I picked up a $100 niterider light on a sale for about %40 off on a website and it works great.
The eBay lights sucks but unless you are rich there is no reason to spend $400 on a light unless you are a pro.

[allwaysinquire]

Bike lights have always been overpriced! There are some great cheap lights out there once you know what to look for. The big thing to watch for is cheap fake battery's anything with "fire " in the name steer clear!
Remember good 18650 battery's (what nearly every top end makers use) are around £20 for two so a £160 battery pack is a rip off even with the charging grubbing. Have a look at fenix and Armytek thurnite they all do head torches that put out 400lm for 4 hrs and under £70 that real lumens not Chinese lumens.
These manufactures blow the likes of petzl black diamond etc out of the water for rear lights.
So buy a cheap head unit and spend your money on battery's and chargers.i have lots of top headlights but use a cheap Chinese head unit that puts out 1200lm but runs on a usb power pack (again get a good one Iike Anker or aukey) plenty of light for 2.5 hrs for under £50 job done.