Magicshine MJ-872 1600 Lumen Bike Light

In the universe of bike lights the Magicshine MJ-872 (catchy name) is a brighter star than most. Pumping out a claimed 1,600 lumens it's a seriously powerful bit of kit. The beam pattern isn't that well tailored for road riding but you can't argue that you're not getting value for money here. If you venture off-road as well as on, this light is capable of lighting your way.

The MJ-872 is a standard two-pack affair with a separate 4.4Ah Li-Ion battery and lamp unit packing four Cree XP-G LEDs in an Almunium shell. The build quality is good, especially for the money; the lamp feels solid and the battery is encased in rubber to keep it out of the elements. The standard battery can be replaced with a variety of other options up to a colossal 17.4Ah unit capable of giving eight hours of full power; the 5.8Ah battery, which gives a claimed 2h40m on full and pushes the price up to just under £150, looks like it would be a good bet.

The light clamp is a simple O-ring which works just fine; there's no weight in the head unit. You can also helmet mount the light with the supplied fittings, although I found i could only do this if I wore a rucksack and attached the battery to the top of one of the straps. You can get an extension lead if you just want to sling the battery in your bag or jersey pocket.

Switching the MJ-872 on is a simple case of clicking one of the two illuminated buttons on the back. Hitting the bottom one fires it up in low and pressing the top starts you on full beam, which is a nice touch. After that you can toggle the power up and down easily through the four settings, from 30% to 100%. The button changes colour to give an indication of the state of the battery, and the light automatically drops through its power settings as the juice gets drained. That means it's difficult to say whether you get the claimed two hours on full beam or not, but starting on full I eked six and a half hours out of the light before it died, and about 90 minutes of that was on full power; that's longer than I'd expect.

So what's it like on the road? Well, a bit too bright really. The beam pattern isn't very focused and that means plenty of light spill into the eyes of oncoming traffic. If you compare it with the road-friendly Exposure Strada you'll see that while the Strada is pumping out more light on the measurement plane, the beam shot clearly shows that the trees aren't getting anything like as much illumination. I didn't use the light on full power much on the road, save for a few dead-of-night descents.

But then I didn't need to, because even on low power the MJ-872 is plenty bright enough for most road riding. Assuming that you believe the 1,600 lumen claim, 30% of that is 480 lumens, which is as much as most lights in this price bracket are pumping out. Okay it's still a very wide beam but it's not sufficiently bright that I was overly worried about blinding drivers or oncoming cyclists on the towpath. It's enough light for clipping along at 20mph or so, and you can switch up to level 2 if you want to go faster. Even on low, you'll be plenty visible to traffic. Except from the side, of course: fit a flasher too.

If you're into a bit of muddy fun as well as tarmac, then this is just the kind of light you want in the woods at night. Reach isn't such an issue because you're not going as fast, and there's masses of peripheral light to pick your line round corners. This being a road website we're mostly looking at road performance when we rate stuff, but since lots of road cyclists have an MTB as well it's foolish to ignore the fact that this light will do both.

Any other gripes? Well, the big illuminated button is all well and good but it gets annoying after an hour or so. I stuck some gaffer tape on it. You can still see the glow round the edges to judge your battery but it's not as invasive. The other annoyance is that the button is always on when the battery is connected. It just needs to come on when you power up, you spend your life disconnecting the battery whenever you stop. The battery bag feels a bit cheap too. That's Hardly the end of the world though.

Verdict

All things considered, the MJ-872 is a great value, well-engineered light that's easy to use. The beam pattern and high output mean it's overkill for the roads on full beam, but the lower settings are good for road use and it'll transfer to your MTB for woodland-based fun too, if you have one. There are better road-specific lights out there, but it's hard to argue with the value.