Gemini are a Canadian lighting company that are new to the UK, but their tough, weatherproof Xera light is one of the best we’ve used.
The head unit is tiny at just over 50g, and it fits unnoticed onto bars or the included helmet and off-bike headband mounts, via a simple O-ring and hook attachment.
As it’s designed primarily as a helmet light the beam is focused and impressively far reaching, with no dark spots or irregularities – but not a vast amount of peripheral spread. An optional medium beam reflector is included if you want something slightly broader than the spot beam.
You can tune the run times and power outputs relatively simply, although the default high/medium/low settings worked fine for us. Run times are good despite the tiny, sub-150g ‘stick it under your stem’ hardshell battery, and you get an extension lead for headband/helmet use.
Gemini also do a four-cell version for £150 that doubles run time for those who need a serious amount of range, or don’t like recharging as often.
Although it’s our first season with them in the field, weatherproofing and reliability have been excellent on all the Genesis lights we’ve used so far, which boosts already good value.
This article was originally published in What Mountain Bike magazine, available on Apple Newsstand and Zinio.
