Friday 8 January 2010

Testing the Fenix L2D



I've had two of these on my bike now throughout the whole of this winter. They're great for night rides and even enduro racing. They got me through 'Relentless 24' this year and I've been impressed with their simplicity. They're really well made, fully waterproof and pretty cool looking on the bars.
The great thing about them is that they take 2 AA batteries, so on night rides I can always have a couple of spare batteries in my pack and I know I'll never be left in the dark miles from home. These lights use the super bright Cree Q5 premium LED which really does fire out trail light. There are several mode choices - 12 lumens gives 12 hours of light and 53 lumens gives a published 10.5 hours. Apart from when I'm riding home along roads and trying hard not to dazzle car drivers, I generally only ever use them on full power, giving out about 100 lumens of light, so 200 for the two lights.
They last a good while on full, although probably not the full 4 hours as proposed on the website, they do go for at least 2-3 hours at a time. There's also a 'turbo' mode that blasts out 180 lumens and really lights up the route, good for really technical trails, but the turbo does really hammer the batteries.
I use 'lockblock' mounts to put them on the bars and they're really stable, keeping things looking neat and tidy.
The lights cost around £40 each, so at £80 for the two, they really are much more reasonable than many of the big name 'trail lights' around, and in many ways, more versatile as well.
I'm thinking I'll probably get a third one to mount on my helmet, probably the Fenix L1D. it's 1/2 the size, takes only one AA battery but still gives out 90 lumens on full power! I know there are cheaper, similar lights on Deal Extreme but with the Fenix torches you know what you're getting and you know that the quality is guaranteed.

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