Specialized Flux Elite front light

The Specialized Flux Elite has an impressive beam pattern and plenty of power for the lanes, but the package as whole isn't appealing, especially at the recommended price.

In the box you get the light itself, a Mini-USB charging cable (as opposed to the now much more common Micro-USB) and a three-piece metal mount. Two of the bits clamp around your bar using two 3mm Allen bolts and the other holds the light. It has a release button that depresses a ball in the shaft, which locates in a hole in the light body. So you press the button, slide the light on and click it into place. Once in place the light looks pretty elegant, although if you're on the OCD scale it'll either annoy or perpetually torment you that the mount isn't quite long enough to centre the light in front of the stem.

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The best thing about the Flux Elite is the beam. It has a good quality cut-off beam; I'm not sure it's StVZO (German bicycle lighting standard) tested or compliant, but imagine a German-style dipped beam and you won't be far wrong here. It throws plenty of light onto the road without blinding other road users, but there's enough spill (just) to light up road signs along the way. It's plenty for clipping along unlit lanes and it's town-friendly too. There's a window on each end of the light for a bit of side visibility, although it could be brighter.

The bracket, on the other hand, is dreadful. It's fiddly to fit, and once the light is in place there's enough play between the bearing and the hole it sits in to make it rattle over rough surfaces, and for the beam to bounce around enough to make it annoying.

After a few wet rides the light seized against the bracket and had to be persuaded off with a generous dose of WD40. One bit is steel and one aluminium, so you'll need to watch out for that if you leave the Flux Elite mounted for a long time.

Not that you will, because the battery life is pretty average. I charged the light up to full and set off for an hour and half of riding on the medium beam setting – there's full, medium, pulsing and flashing modes – and after that 90 minutes the button on the top was glowing red (in a sequence of green - amber - red - flashing red) indicating that it would like to be charged again, please. Another 35 minutes the next day and that was that. Full beam lasts not a great deal over an hour. In a world where you can buy an £80 light with a similarly bright low power setting that'll run all night, that's not really competitive.

> Check out our guide to the best front lights here

Also not competitive is the price. Okay it's nicely made, but all that money spent on an over-engineered and under-performing bracket is pretty much wasted, and the RRP of £150 is a long way over the odds for what you're getting. You'll probably get it for less than that online, but there are really good lights out there for less than half the cost of this one.

Verdict

Nice beam shape but bracket is a let-down and it's much too expensive