In this video, we review five of the best rear bike lights of 2024, perfect for enhancing your visibility and safety on the road. From budget-friendly options to high-end picks, these lights offer powerful brightness, long battery life, and sleek designs to keep you safe during your rides.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:13 Exposure Boost R Reakt
01:27 Lezyne Strip Drive Pro 400+
02:47 Cateye Viz450
04:09 NiteRider Bullet 200
05:33 See.Sense Icon 3
07:13 Which Rear Light To Buy
Best Bike Lights 2024 | Rated & Reviewed
Road Bike Lights | Everything You Need To Know
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32 Comments
What's your all-time favourite rear light?
Bontrager Flare R doesn't get a mention…….almost a standard here in Spain! They're everywhere.
Look at this guy shilling overpriced bike lights! 50 pound for a light?!?! Who are you kidding, just use a candle 🕯️
There is one bike company that spent $$$ on RnD for rider visibility (lights, clothing etc), and that's Trek / Bontrager (as far as I know).
Their bike lights are miles ahead of anything else I've used – and that's coming from a specialized fanboy.
Their visibility (day & night), rechargeability, ease of use and longevity (mine have yet to fail at 8 years of daily use) are best in class.
To omit them from this review is negligent.
Do I have to wear white shoes and white socks to my knees with these lights?
If it’s not Varia with radar there is literally nothing worth talking about. What a waste of a video.
I always run one blinking light and one static. I love the blinking pattern on my light and motion vya and for the static light I love the massive size of the knog big cobber.
Exposure lights are overpriced piece of junk. Made in China stuff 10 times better and more reliable now.
I have a set of exposure flash/flare. Whilst they were not cheap, I am very impressed with the performance, the build quality, and the waterproofing. The rear light survived an accidental trip through the washing machine.
The day flash mode is very effective, it was seeing another rider's light from 1/2 mile away in bright sun in the Peak District that made me consider getting it.
Tip: whilst the mounting bracket does not look very secure, I have not lost it on XC mtb or rough gravel, and after market, bolt on brackets are available.
All use degradable rubber mounts which will fail. None hsve any locks or options to prevent thefts .at those prices all should be theft proof and have solid mountings.
I love that they don't include a cable. The majority of people have them and the few people who dont can buy one pretty cheap. It saves wasting cables and reduces cost.
Decathlon's Elops 900 is a banger for the price (don't cheap out on the Elops 100, the 900 is worth it). Cheap, powerful, charges with an included microUSB, comes with a ton of different attachment options…
I’ve owned a number of see sense lights and they all gone wrong within less that a year all due to water ingress customer service is great but as any other Facebook product they lack reliability .
Exspoure flare is the best light I’ve ever owned but the metal gets worn down by the bracket through the act of twisting the release the light from the plastic. If it’s muddy dip the back only in water first.
I've got an Olight seeme that I bought waiting for the brighter rear olights to come back into stock but forgot about it til now. Can't rate it yet but that was less than £20 so these seem quite expensive to me. My Sofirn front bike light was exceptionally good value for money so hoping they do a rear light at some point too.
Knog Blinder, thank me later.
Thanks for your notes about USB-C charging!
Would have been great to see them in the dark rather than flashing in the day
I’m a fan of Moon lights. They give you 2 straps with each headlight, for narrow or wide mounting points. Also the straps are very thick, and they hold up to very cold weather, and don’t eventually stretch and snap like every other light mounting strap I’ve ever used. Taillights have 2 mountings included, strap or clip. Batteries are replaceable on their headlights, they give you a USB cable, and they hold a charge well even at -20 C.
Multiple people own Garmin Varias, but other than those, there are as many taillights as there are riders in the group.
Garmin Varia. Hands down. Everything else is fighting for second.
How about actually showing night & day visibility from multiple distances to get a better gauge of how effective they are?
Garmin Varia – nothing else compares.
Lezyne KTV Smart 75 rear light is my latest. It works as a pairing with the Lezyne 1800i front light. Also really great lights are the MagicShine SEEMEE300 rear light, and CBL1600 front light.
I use a Knog Little Cobber rear light. No port. No cable. Plugs straight into a charger or computer. 50, 150 or 270 lumen versions. Looks slick.
The Exposure and Lezyne lights point down at the angle of the seatpost (~16°). Do the lights have optics that compensate for this or are you just stuck with the brightest part of your light pointing at the road a few feet behind you?
KNOG Rear Cobber would be the absolute perfect rear light if it didn't have that god awful charging mechanism.
Lupine Rotlicht, nothing else.
Lots of my riding was on dark Hampshire country lanes, in poor conditions. I used at least 2 flashing rear Cateyes, sometimes a third flashing cheapo (but bright) from Panet-X …
BUT there are some important things to note. LED lights are usually very directional. I took time to angle mine so they shone just up from horizontal (you can use a wall about 20 meters away to check).
ALSO I has lots of retro-reflective stuff going on. No rear light is as eye-catching as a big strip of Scotchlite in car headlights.
I honestly felt more visible at night on the lanes than I did during the day, when the low sun can blind drivers and even bright clothing can get lost in the surroundings.
I got the Cateye and i literally hate all of its modes. I got the Olight RN 100 and i love its Comet function best flash mode ever seen in a tail light . Front i got Astrolux Sl01 . Similalry best beam pattern ever seen in a bike light.
Great review what's the best mode for night riding? 🤔
What's the best mode for night riding on the lezyne light?.
interessant fact:
In Switzerland flashing lights are only authorized on normal bikes (not electrical) and during the day with good visibility conditions, in all others case, at least 1 steady light is compulsory in the back and at the front, you are still able to get a secondary flashing light.
But if you have turning signal, it's fully forbiden in any case to have a flashing light.
The justification if my memories are good is:
1)flashing lights give the feeling that the bike is further, steady lights are better to give a right distance feeling to drivers.
2)there is an effect (don't remember his name) that make people look at flashing lights and deviate on it.
3)flahings lights are reserved to hazards and emergency vehicle (that are an hazard in a way).