01.Bike lights

The primary role of bike lights isn’t to help you see your way in the dark, but rather to make you visible to other road users. The more visible you are, the less chance of being hit by a careless car driver.

When you ride your bicycle at night or in low-visibility conditions, such as fog or heavy rain, the law requires that you have lights. These include:

• A white light at the front.
• A red light at rear.
• A rear red reflector

The lights can be steady or flashing, and must be visible for at least 200 metres. Ideally, they should also be visible 50 metres from the side.

Ride On, the Bicycle Victoria magazine, recently tested 18 front lights, 12 rear lights and five combination sets to find the best and brightest.   See the full report in the April/May issue or call 03 8636 8888 to get a copy.

What to buy

Front lights

• Basta Polaris 5 (BA3C), $40
• Sigma Kalmit, $99
• Topeak Whitelight DX, $80  

Rear lights

• Cateye TL-LD610-R, $60
• Cateye TL-LD150-R, $25
• S-Sun SS-L-121R, $55  

Combination sets

• Cateye (EL135 / LD130R), $75
• Basta (Polaris 0.5W / Superflash 0.5W), $80
• Planetbike (Blaze 0.5W / Superflash Blaze 0.5W), $90

The test

A panel of 10 judges from the cycling community — including police, government, retailers, community groups and CHOICE — assessed the lights at night on a suburban road with a popular cycle path, at a distance of 200m, and also at 50m with the lights angled at 45° (to simulate the bike approaching an intersection). The flash rate, where applicable, was also assessed. The lights were also assessed by a team of industrial designers from RMIT University in Melbourne, looking at ease of use and documentation, materials and components, construction (including weather resistance) and appearance

All these assessments were combined into an overall score for each light, with visibility given the most weighting. All the lights performed at least reasonably well, but there were some clear winners.

The combination sets include a front and rear light. The lights from the combination sets were assessed individually, and their scores added together to see which sets were best. Overall the combination sets performed well and generally offer good value for money compared with buying front and rear lights separately. However, except for the Cateye, the front lights in these sets tended to perform better than the rear lights.