Lumicycle Apex Enduro Pack

The Apex is UK brand Lumicycle's most powerful road light, chucking out a claimed 1650 lumen. It's not just about power though, with plenty of modes and battery choices it can be used for everything from high speed unlit descents to overnight epics with a bit of planning. It should be all the light you ever need.

The beauty of the Apex is the beam pattern. If you take a look at our beam comparison you'll see it's wide and flat providing excellent coverage of the ground without lighting up every treetop and low flying aircraft.

What you get is a decent pool of white light in front of you from the three CREE XPG2 LED's with the same amount of light pushed onto the roadside and beyond. Picking up potholes and drains in the gutter is easy without having to move your gaze from looking straight ahead.

The flat beam does have a minor drawback in that you don't quite get the distance for really high speed riding that you get with their Race light (which we've also had in for review) but it's minimal and the Apex is a more of an all-rounder light anyway.

You get five modes to choose from and they are all useable in some place or another. At the bottom is the flash which kicks out 75 lumen (all lumens are manufacturer quoted) which I used for filtering through congested traffic. It certainly gets you noticed but if I was moving at the same speed as the traffic I'd switch it to the low mode as it could get irritating in a driver's rear view mirror. I prefer a pulse like the Exposure lights if I'm honest.

That low mode is 160 lumen, enough to ride by on unlit roads at about 10 or so mph and it'd give 37 hours of burn time too. I found it best on street lit roads as a light to be seen by, the bright white being a great contrast against the orange glow.

Mid and high modes are the two to get the most use though with the 550 lumen (9 hours run time) and 1100 lumen (4.2 hours) outputs giving you as much light as you realistically need on the road. The mid was fine for riding at 20-25mph on country lanes (switching to the high if you're going any faster) and at any speed on marked main roads. Having the light angled just below horizontal this setting was the highest you'd want to go with oncoming traffic as the beam pattern and small eyelid don't cause any dazzle whatsoever. It's the perfect balance of light output and courtesy.

The Boost mode, 1650 eye-watering lumens of light can be saved for those daring descents and it allows you to ride at pretty much daylight speeds. The smart thing is you can flick to this level at the start of a downhill and it'll remain at top power for three minutes before reverting back to the high mode. Should you want full power for longer just a hold of the switch for a couple of seconds sees you in total control, you'll only get 2.1 hours of burn time for this though.

Performance wise then it does the business but what about the function and build quality? Well it delivers here to thanks to some top quality UK manufacturing plus you get a two year warranty as well.

The main body is CNC machined alloy with fins to remove the heat generated by the LEDs, though if this doesn't provide enough cooling the electronics will turn the power down to avoid damaging the light.

The quick release bracket holds firm and is really easy to set up being adjustable to fit both standard diameter and oversize bars.

A lot of LED lights, especially high powered front ones, don't provide much in the way of side visibility, so it's good to see Lumicycle providing the formerly optional glow ring on their lights as standard. It does kick out a lot of light and certainly gave me a bit of extra confidence at junctions.

Lumicycle have always provided a modular system for their lights, in that you can choose any light unit or battery setup to create your preferred configuration. Our Enduro model comes with the Apex head unit (£154.95 separately) and a 2.6Ah Li-Ion battery pack which you can upgrade to either a 5.2Ah bar battery or a water bottle version for double the burn times. If you dabble in the dirty world of mountain biking you can just plug in your off road light into the same battery.

The cost then, £234.95. Personally I think that's value for money for a light that comes with a two year warranty and such good build quality as we've got here. Or to look at it another way, this time of year I need a light to commute twice a day, five times a week and it needs to work every time I ask it to without fail. I don't want to be worrying about whether it's going to conk out in the rain or if the battery is going to give up and this is exactly what the Apex provides, reassurance.

Overall then the Apex provides all the light you need plus a little bit more that's usable on the road in real world conditions. It's expensive but if you are serious about you dark training rides think of it as more of an investment as going by the build quality it's going to last you for many years. Downsides, personally I'd prefer a flash mode where the light stays on at low output between pulses and if you like to really push on on country lanes you might notice a lack of depth.

Verdict

Great road-specific light with lots of output; quality & performance justifies high price

The light comparator

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