When it comes to riding off-road at night, there’s no such thing as too much light. Just as well really, because the 1,400 lumens (350 lux at 5m) pumped out by the 401 Pro Model lights up the trail well enough for near daytime attack speeds.
Luminous Lights are a UK company making bike lights for those who are committed to riding as much at night as they do in the day. The four-model range of Luminous lights are all around the £300 mark and that fact alone places them at the ‘considered purchase’ end of the market.
The 116g head unit of the 401 makes it the baby of the (external battery) bunch with the 501 (1,700 lumens) and 701 (2,000 lumens) beating it on paper for power and dimension. The 401 can be used for running and caving but we mounted it to the bar of our bike and were totally happy with all aspects of its on-trail performance.
On maximum power you’ll get a genuine 2hr 45min run, with 3hr 45min on the 1,000 lumen middle setting. We ran a whole night riding Mountain Mayhem 24-hour solo on the 400-lumen low setting. We switched off approaching six hours. The six-hour charge time is a wait, though.
While the connectors are excellent and weatherproof – we left the light out and connected in a week’s worth of rain, just to see – we'd have liked a 90-degree connector for the main cable out the back of the head unit. The battery weighs 375g, light enough to please weight weenies, but we’d have liked a longer Velcro strap to help with fitting on frames with girthy tubes and a rubberised coating or patch on the nylon pouch the battery sits in to help it grip the frame tubes.
This article was originally published in What Mountain Bike magazine.