The Best Mountain Bike Lights of 2024

The user-friendliness extends beyond the mount. The raised single button is large and easy to find while riding, has a defined click so you know you hit it, and works every time. We also appreciated the indicator light showing the current mode during selection and the remaining battery during operation. Most lights aren’t too difficult to use, but we appreciated the straightforward and simple approach from Outbound — it does everything you need it to and nothing you don’t.

On the trail, the Hangover is a solid performer. The wide beam pattern is perfect 95% of the time, particularly on technical, medium-speed trails — up to around 20 mph— and we never experienced any tunnel vision. The 5% of riding where we didn’t love it was on very fast, straight trails, where we found ourselves adjusting the angle to try to throw the beam further down the trail. That said, we don’t really see the need to be riding that fast at night anyway.

With four lighting modes — adaptive, high, medium, and low — and run times ranging from 1:12 on high, 1:40 on adaptive, and 6:30 on low, the Hangover isn’t the longest-running light. Still, we found the life of the 3,500 mAh battery to be plenty sufficient for most night rides — usually one to two hours. The low setting provided enough light for lower-speed climbing, and we never had to finish a descent on a lower setting to conserve the battery.

We did make use of adaptive mode, which starts on high and gradually reduces to medium mode over the course of 30 minutes as your eyes adapt to the darkness. We really didn’t notice any change in brightness on the trail as it reduced to medium — which means it worked to maintain a consistent visual effect as our eyes adjusted. You can also charge the Hangover while riding with any external battery pack with a USB-C connection to the light.

We found ourselves reaching for the Hangover the most of any helmet light in our testing and the wide beam lights up everything in its path without washing out details. It is also by far the least intrusive and most user-friendly helmet mount light we’ve tried. At $135, it’s competitively priced, and we feel the quality finish, attention to detail, and extremely solid overall performance make it a worthy investment for serious night riders.

Installing and removing the light body from the clamp is done with a quick-release slot and cam lock, which has been durable, easy to use, and stable throughout testing. The light angle can also be changed without tools and independent of the clamp, which makes it easy to dial in the angle regardless of the pitch of the trail.

On the trail, we felt similarly about the Trail Evo as we did with Outbound’s Hangover helmet light — it’s perfect for 95% of night riding, but we could outrun the wide beam pattern on the fastest straightaways. This is a great result — this light was powerful enough for most of our riding, providing good visibility into upcoming features without washing anything out, and never gave us tunnel vision or eye fatigue.

When paired with the Hangover helmet light — available as the Evo Downhill Package (Trail Evo & Hangover) — we were perfectly content and convinced it is probably the best user experience available today.

The modes of the Trail Evo are identical to the helmet-mounted Hangover – low, medium, high, and adaptive. The internal 10,000 mAh battery provides a 2:35 (adaptive) and 1:45 (high) run time, which allowed us to turn on the light at the beginning of our ride (in either adaptive or high) and forget about it for the duration.

For rides longer than 1.5 hours, we set the Trail Evo to low while climbing and switched to either adaptive or high for descents with no concerns about brightness. Like with the Hangover, the adaptive mode worked intuitively and helped us stretch a bit more life out of the battery. The clearly visible, but not distracting, battery indicator helped us manage battery life as well. 

While the extremely bright Exposure Six Pack Mk13 packs more power for the 5% of the time we are riding flat out at night, the Trail Evo is less than half the price and a strong performer in nearly all scenarios. We feel this makes it a more sensible choice for most night riders unless they are incredibly fast or long-stage endurance riders who may need more battery life.

With the best user experience in the game, a wide beam pattern that is nearly always bright enough, and sleek mounting, we wholeheartedly recommend the Trail Evo, or the Evo Downhill package, for anyone serious about investing in their lighting setup.

The Lumina Pro 1200 has 5 steady output modes — Walk (20:00h at 65 lumens), Low (7:00h at 150 lumens), Med (3:00h at 400 lumens), High (1:30h at 800 lumens), and Boost (0:55h at 1200 lumens) — along with 3 pulse modes (all with 8:00h expected battery life). The two buttons make it easy to toggle between settings quickly as you can go back and forth between High and Medium without the need to cycle through all the modes, which is common on lights controlled by a single button. 

On the trail, the Niterider Lumina Pro 1200 is a solid performer. With a max output of 1200 lumens, it’s not as bright as the Exposure Zenith or Six Pack, and it doesn’t have the wide flood beam of the Outbound Lighting Trail Evo handlebar or Hangover helmet lights, but it is a reasonably powerful light that worked well for most of our night riding.

We did find ourselves generally descending in Boost mode, which has a shorter battery life of 0:55 minutes. Provided we climbed mainly in lower settings, we never ran out of battery on our 1- to 3-hour rides (and the battery indicator never dropped below 25%).

While the beam is more of a spotlight than the Exposure or Outbound Lighting options, it is not too tight and is competitive in terms of peripheral flood capability with similar options like the Lezyne Lite Drive 1200+ or Macro Drive 1400+. We did, however, prefer to use the Lumina Pro 1200 on the helmet with a handlebar light with a wider flood pattern for aggressive trail riding.

On the handlebars, we prefer a slightly more powerful light for most of our night rides, but we had no complaints for winter fat bike riding, which is generally a bit slower and more forgiving on brightness than faster summer trail riding. We noticed a bit of extra weight on our helmet due to the sturdy construction, but we didn’t really mind after we adjusted to it.

At $115, the Niterider Lumina Pro 1200 is a versatile value buy for any rider, particularly those who need a commuting light and may want to try out a couple of night trail rides from time to time. It’s a solid, easy-to-use option that works well as both a helmet or handlebar light for most reasonably paced trail riding and worked flawlessly throughout our time with it.

Run times are pretty respectable, with up to 2.3 hours in High (1500 lumens) and 6 hours in Medium (600 lumens). We generally didn’t have any issues on regular night rides in the 2-hour range. For big trips, we loved that we could stock up on readily available and relatively cheap rechargeable batteries and still have enough power for nights upon nights of riding. But that comes with one catch — the unit’s waterproofness.

Its robust IP67 rating only applies when it’s sealed. Changing batteries in the middle of a midnight rainstorm is a delicate procedure that could lead to a shorted light if water gets into the battery compartment.

It also leads us to another consideration. The BC30 V2.0 sold without batteries, and you’ll need to purchase those with the light, which adds to the otherwise low price. We appreciate the ability to stock up, bring them along, and swap them out to extend our rides, but realistically, we generally prefer the simplicity of an internal rechargeable battery like the Light & Motion Seca Comp 2000, although that light is nearly double the price.

Otherwise, we appreciate the Fenix’s ease of use, brightness, and fairly long run times. This is another solid handlebar-mount option — or pick up a helmet mount for use on your head — and it won’t break the bank.

We ended up purchasing an action camera mount for $10 to resolve this, which was stable and worked great. It also comes with a lanyard, and due to the traditional flashlight shape, we found ourselves using the Zenith off the bike — it’s a good, powerful flashlight for use around the house, too.

The initial setup of the Zenith is fairly easy with the indicator light, but it is a bit more involved than the Outbound Lighting Hangover, for example. That said, there are more mode options to choose from, so taking the time to thoroughly read the instructions to dial it in for your needs is worth it. For example, the Zenith has a TAP mode, which lets you change the brightness of the light by tapping the body rather than pressing the button.

We tested TAP mode, and while it worked as intended with no unexpected setting changes at medium sensitivity, we ended up turning it off. We had no problems finding and pressing the button at the back of the light, even with our helmets on, and it’s just not a feature we chose to use. That said, if you’re racing or frequently adjusting light settings on the go, this feature is pretty slick.

We mainly rode with the Zenith in Mode 1 (1 hour high, 3 hours medium, 6 hours low) and Mode 4 (1 hour high, 3 hours medium), as this fits into our usual night ride durations. We never ran the Zenith out of juice on the trail. We were most comfortable climbing in the 3-hour medium setting and navigated a few uphill sections in the 6-hour low setting with no problems.

While riding, the Zenith is more of a spotlight than a floodlight, which we appreciated for a helmet light. With the Zenith on our helmet and the extremely powerful Six Pack Mk13 on our handlebars, we could see as far down the trail as we do during the day.

Not only was the Zenith super-bright at 2200 lumens, but the beam distance made it so we never had to worry about outrunning it. We also used it in combination with other handlebar lights and liked how the more focused Zenith could be differentiated from a wider beam like that of the Outbound Trail Evo.

We chose the Outbound Hangover as the best overall helmet light because we think it’s a great choice for most riders most of the time. That said, if you want the pinnacle of performance, we think the Zenith Mk3 is it, but it’ll cost you. At $320, the Zenith is more than twice the price of the Hangover, but it is twice as bright, built to last, and a great choice for any rider looking for a more powerful helmet light — if you can justify the expense.

Across all ten modes, the Six Pack’s 17,000 mAh battery gives it a minimum burn time of 2 hours on high (3900 lumens constant output) and a max life of 36 hours (low setting in program 6). This wide range should ensure the Six Pack works well for any rider’s needs. For our riding, Mode 1 with Reflex++ technology was our go-to, allowing us to not touch the light settings at all on any ride under ~3 hours. 

Reflex++ technology makes the Six Pack the only light we tested that adjusts brightness automatically based on data from 3D digital accelerometers, including gyroscope and thermistors. The system continuously adjusts how it changes brightness based on riding data with the goal of optimizing output at a given rider’s top speed in rough terrain. It takes about 20 minutes for the Six Pack to initially “learn” a rider’s style, which is then saved as a starting point. If riding forces, environment, speed, or style changes, it will then continuously adjust.

In Mode 1, Reflex++ is optimized for a 3-hour runtime and provides up to 5450 lumens for fast and/or rough descents. We found it worked reliably and consistently — we always had the right amount of brightness from the Six Pack and didn’t need to press the button to switch between settings because the light did it automatically. When we were climbing, the light would dim to save battery, and when we descended fast, rocky trails, it would ramp up to the maximum brightness seamlessly.

This setting also provided significantly more visibility/brightness than any other light we tested, making it our top choice for aggressive night riding. The beam pattern is wide enough to clearly light up the trail and peripherals, and the beam throws far enough down the barrel that we couldn’t possibly outrun it. At 404 grams, it’s definitely heavier than most, but the included handlebar clamp is sturdy, stable, and quiet, so we never really noticed the extra weight.

At $536, the Exposure Six Pack Mk13 is VERY expensive, but we have no doubts it will last nearly forever. If you’re a seriously dedicated night rider, think of the Six Pack as a long-term investment — it’s built to last, Reflex++ works very well, the beam pattern balances long-distance throw and peripheral flooding, and it is undoubtedly the brightest light we’ve ever ridden with. If you can afford it, this is the pinnacle of mountain bike lights.

With both handlebar and helmet mounts included, we chose to run the 2300 on our handlebar and the 1800 on our helmet. The handlebar mount is a straightforward hinged clamp that attaches right next to the stem. The light head bolts onto the clamp, and the whole thing is impressively stable and secure. The helmet mount is a Velcro strap affair that feeds through the upper helmet vents.

We had no issues mounting it on the two helmets we used during testing, but could see some potential compatibility issues depending on your helmet’s vent configuration. Regardless, we found it to be surprisingly stable in use. For either mount, however, changes to the light’s angle required the use of tools.

With two mounting options for the external battery pack, you can either mount a bracket to your bottle cage or strap the battery to your frame. We chose the latter to avoid using the cable extension and found it to be super stable and annoyance-free. For the helmet-mounted light, we used the cable extension and stashed the battery in the rear pocket of our cargo liner bibs. This worked great, but like any external battery, it’s a bit of faff to get perfect.

The wired remote can be easily mounted on the handlebar using the strap mount, and a stick-on mount is included for use on your helmet. Both mounts are magnetic and hold the remote in place, but it can easily break away in the event the cable gets snagged while riding. The remote button toggles through light modes, with an indicator light to differentiate between brightness settings, while the battery power button shows the remaining charge.

The Blinder X lights are exceptionally bright and have a long, focused beam along with great peripheral spread. On high, you can see clear as day and the trail is illuminated perfectly for riding as fast as you want. A quick tap of the remote turns them down to medium and a little less than half brightness. A second tap dims them to low at 350 lumens.

Run times vary depending on the model, with the 1800 boasting an impressive 2.5 hours and the 2300 coming in at 1.8 hours on high — and roughly triple that in the medium setting. That’s more than adequate for most people’s night rides, especially if you switch between brightness settings as you go.

The new Blinder X lights are absolutely fantastic and a great option for serious night riders. Unlike the self-contained Outbound and Exposure lights, however, the external battery packs add a bit of complexity to set up.

Adjusting the light head angles on a ride also requires the use of tools, and the combination of the light and battery pack adds up to a pretty hefty system weight at 433 g. Still, these bright lights work really well and are a great addition to the mountain bike light market.

While trail-worthy, it’s equally at home in a commuting setting with great daytime visibility modes and optional side lighting. The rubber strap system makes mounting it super simple, and it will fit just about any handlebar. This makes it easy to toss in a pack or pocket until you need it, plus it’s easy to switch between bikes or remove for charging. That said, the rubber strap isn’t the most secure over super rough terrain, and we have long-term durability concerns compared to the metal clamps on many other models.

Battery life is indicated through the power button which illuminates in three different colors. When you’ve fully drained the battery, it charges completely in 4 hours with any standard micro-USB cable.

Still, the Seca Comp 2000 is about as straightforward as they come and should appeal to those who love night riding but hate the tech complexity of many of the other, fancier lights. It’s bright enough and easy to use, and we’d heartily recommend this as a gateway light to anyone exploring night riding for the first time. Its versatility also makes the Seca Comp 2000 a solid option for those who mix it up between commuting and nighttime trail rides.

For serious night riding, we’d still go for something like the Outbound Trail Evo, which is a bit brighter and has a slightly longer burn time. Pair that with the Outbound Hangover for a great helmet and handlebar combo.

We could spend an entire article on all the options and configurations available with Lupine. But instead, we’ll just say the possibilities feel endless compared to every other brand on this list. Want the light on your head, helmet, bar, or boat? No problem. Need a huge battery for a mega race or a tiny emergency battery for your huge light? Gotcha covered. Monitor your battery life and adapt the brightness settings via smartphone? OK. The Lupine Lights Wilma R 7 can handle it all.

With a max output of 3600 lumens, this thing can light up the woods like it’s daytime, and the beam’s throw and spread are well balanced, so you can see everything. Thankfully, it has numerous brightness settings, and you can customize them to your needs and preferences. The included 6,900 mAh external battery pack provides a good amount of juice with a 1.75-hour run time on high (3,600 lumens) and 3.3 hours at 1,800 lumens — which is more than bright enough for most night riding.

So, what are the drawbacks of this impressive light system? First, like any light with an external battery, there is some added complexity and wires to connect the lamp head and battery — plus, you have to mount the battery to your frame or carry it in a pocket or pack. Second, it’s wildly expensive, with a retail price of $650. At that price, we’re more inclined to go with the Exposure Six-Pack Mk13 or Zenith Mk3, which are self-contained and easier to deal with.

Still, this is an excellent light and the Wilma R 7 is best thought of as a lifetime investment that can grow or adapt as your desires do.

It charges completely via USB in 2.5 hours. It can even maintain a 150-lumen output while charging, which is just enough light to grind gravel for as long as it takes to make that perfect camp. It’ll run for 1.5 hours on high and up to 6 hours on low (250 lumens), which should be great for those times you’re out later than expected.

We were not huge fans of the beam pattern on the Vis Pro 1000 for high-speed singletrack. The simple rubber mounting system was not 100% stable on extremely rough terrain. Still, this light is great to throw in the pack for those bikepacking missions or evening rides where you’re flirting with darkness.

The max output of 2,000 lumens allowed us to feel confident at speed, and the 2-hour burn time (on high) is ample for most of our nocturnal outings. Running it on the lower settings while climbing or rising at slower speeds ensured we had ample battery life for all but the longest of rides.

Gloworm’s LINK app makes customization a breeze, so you can adjust the different brightness levels (and burn times) to your specific needs. The X2 Adventure is preprogrammed with three fixed light settings for trail riding. Plus, it has a “special” mode with a disrupted flash pattern (with a much longer burn time).

One of the other features that we really appreciated was the wireless remote switch, so we never needed to take our hands off the bars to change brightness settings. The inclusion of multiple lenses allowed us to optimize the beam pattern for each rider’s preference or the trails/roads we were riding. And the Power Pack has a USB-C port and can be used as a power bank to charge your phone in a pinch.

Make no mistake, we love the Gloworm X2 Adventure light, but like other options with external batteries, it’s just not quite as user-friendly or convenient as those with internal batteries like the Outbound Trail Evo and Hangover or the Exposure Zenith and Six-Pack models.

We rarely even felt the need to switch it to the blazing 4,200-lumen high beam. The Pro 4200 Enduro feels a bit brutish rather than elegant. It has a wired remote switch and a massive eight-cell battery that can give the light a 16.5-hour burn time at 600 lumens. NiteRider’s universal center bar mount will also fit any handlebars including 35mm diameters.

It comes at a high price tag, but if you want to strap on your armor and ride things at night that make most mountain bikers tremble during the daytime, the 4200 Enduro is bright enough to light your way. And if you’re concerned about weight or price, it’s worth checking out the Pro 2200 Race ($250), which will save you some cash while still being adequately bright for most people’s needs.

The biggest drawback to the Pro 4200 Enduro is undoubtedly its weight, which at 1,406 g, is significantly heavier than others we tested. When it comes to the battery size and weight, this light definitely seems a little dated. Still, if you’re more concerned with long run times for 24-hour races or similar events, that weight may be tolerable.