Cateye Volt 1700 USB Rechargeable Front Light

Cateye's Volt 1700 has been around for a while – long enough for it to be reviewed a second time here on road.cc. While the light output and beam pattern are still as good as they ever were, the standard bracket doesn't really work for me that well, and I'd like to be able to charge the light while using it. For my set of requirements for this kind of light, although the Volt 1700 is great, other lights fit the bill better, for less money.

Check out our guide to the best front bike lights for more options, or if you're in the market for illumination at both ends, our best bike lights guide reveals our favourite front and rear units. 

The Volt 1700 offers five modes: High is 1,700 lumens (run-time around 2 hours), medium is 500 lumens (5 hours) and low is 200 lumens (15 hours). The Hyper constant flashing mode is 200 lumens with 1,700-lumen flashes (12 hours), and flashing mode is 200 lumens (150 hours).

The light has a memory function, which remembers your last mode when you switch it on again. A double-click will chuck it straight into 1,700 lumens – useful just before a descent.

The big button on top works well, even in winter-gloved hands in the dark. It changes colour to amber when the battery is below 50% capacity, and red below 25%.

Charging

The charging port sits just in front of the mounting point and has a decent bung – easy to open, yet substantial enough to keep weather out. It's a micro-USB, so you're likely to have 27 spare cables already, but the downside is that it takes a while to charge – around 5 hours from empty. It would be nice to see USB-C here.

Unlike some other lights (like the Ravemen LR1600), the Volt cannot be charged in use – as soon as you plug a cable in, the light switches off.

The battery is removable by way of a quick release, which means you can replace it easily when it no longer does its job. It also means you could carry a spare if you needed longer run-times. A spare costs £99. Not exactly cheap, especially not compared with a bog-standard battery bank (if you were able to charge on the go), which is more versatile anyway as you can also use it to charge your phone and head unit if you're on that sort of ride. As the spare battery comes with a proprietary connection, you can only charge it when connected to the light.

In my opinion, the charge-while-riding option is much preferable to eke out run-times.

Bracket

The light comes with Cateye's FlexTight bracket, which is shared across its ranges of front lights. The bracket itself is well designed, and gives a secure, tool-free attachment. However, the Volt 1700 is the biggest in the Cateye front light range, and in my experience is just a bit too heavy for the bracket. On uneven road surfaces, there is a bit of bounce. Not much of an issue on the road, but for riding gravel in the dark it's a bit annoying.

The bracket positions the light's fore-aft midpoint behind the centre of the handlebar, meaning it sits quite far back. This can cause knee interference when you're out-of-the-saddle climbing, especially if you mount the light underneath the handlebar, which is my preference.

A GoPro adapter is available to mount the light under your favourite out-front head unit mount, but costs an extra £6.99; for £179.99 I would have expected this to have been included.

In use

Our Shaun tested the Volt 1700 in 2018, his review being based on his experience of riding mostly on lanes and commuting in urban traffic. He liked the light and, if anything, thought 1,700 lumens was a bit too good.

I agree with his findings so won't go into much detail here. I found the modes to be well judged; the medium mode is plenty for riding on dark lanes, chucking it up to the high mode only for steep, sketchy descents. The hyper constant flashing mode certainly gets you noticed in foul day-time conditions where you don't necessarily need it to see, but you definitely want to be seen.

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For gravel riding in the dark, the medium mode is just right, picking up plenty of detail to find the right line. A quick double-click gets you into full blast 1,700 lumens mode (akin to Lezyne's Race mode where you switch between high and low mode only, like you find on the Mega Drive 1800i, for example), which is very useful, as without it you'd have to cycle through all the lower modes to get to high mode again.

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For my ability on a gravel bike, high was plenty to find the right lines on even the steepest and most technical descents, though if I was on a bike where you need fewer skills for more speed, like a full suspension downhill mountain bike, more illumination would be required to let the bike run.

Value

At £180, the Volt 1700 is not cheap. There are other lights that have scored well in our reviews that offer similar performance for less of your pounds.

Lezyne's Mega Drive 1800i front light, mentioned above, costs £160 and lets you set up your preferred modes in your preferred order via Bluetooth and an app on your phone.

Ravemen's LR1600 USB Rechargeable Curved Lens Front Light costs even less at £114.99, and is rechargeable while riding.

As ever, you can spend more: Light & Motion's Seca Comp 2000 front light, tested by Mike last winter, costs £254.99, but does offer more lumens.

It is worth saying here that the Volt's run-times on high are longer than all the lights mentioned above. If that's what's important to you then the Volt is a great option. For me, charging on the go trumps a longer run-time; when I need long run-times, I'm carrying battery bank anyway.

Conclusion

The Volt 1700 is still a great way to see where you are going, both on the road and off. The included handlebar mount doesn't allow for my preferred way of mounting this kind of light, which I appreciate is a preference, and is easily sorted with a couple of extra bits, but it would have been nice to see those included in the £180 this light costs.

Although the run-times on high are longer than the cheaper Ravemen light mentioned above, the Volt can't be charged while using it, which for the way I use this kind of light wouldn't justify the extra cost of the Volt.

Verdict

Still a great light, but doesn't charge on the go and could do with a better bracket