Top 5 Wireless MTB Lights for 2020 [Video]

Words by: Liam Woods

***Note: Below is a list of new 2022/2023 lights that have been updated from the video.***

Overview

As the days get shorter and the time change looms, riding times become limited. Time to pull out the night lights and get riding after work. The new lights that are out now are powerful enough and last long enough to be completely self-contained in a unit without a separate battery pack. Yes, gone are the days of having a cord down your back or trying to tape up a cord and battery to your bike. Two small and simple lights are all you need, one for the head and one for the handlebar and you can now crank out long rides during fall and winter to keep some fitness, or really just be out riding bikes. 

These lights offer different beams, some more narrow and direct and others more spread out and dispersed. My opinion is, if possible, have a more narrow light on the helmet and a more spread out one on the handlebar. If going with two of the same lights, two narrow beams will work better than two spread out beams. But that is my opinion and if you think otherwise, I won't be offended. Swear. I will go through some of our favorites, but as with any mountain bike product there are a plethora of options, so I will try to help with decision paralysis. 

NiteRider Lights:

NiteRider Lumina Micro 900 Headlight: $79.99

One of the smallest lights with the most lumens on the market, the NiteRider Lumina Micro 900 Headlight packs a punch for its small size. This unit is USB rechargeable and can charge from dead to full in 2.5 hours. At only 130g, the Lumina Micro 900 is a serious weapon. I wanted to start with this light at the top of the blog (not that I put these lights in any kind of ranking order), but this Lumina kind of steals the spotlight. If you were to only buy one light, this would be an awesome choice. If you wanted to hit the helmet and handlebar, this would still be an awesome choice for both. Just buy a helmet mount and you have a killer combo!

Specs

• 900 lumen output
• All New Collimator Lens, produces a generous even widespread beam
• 4 Light Levels plus 1 Daylight Flash Mode
• FL1 Standard IP64, dust and water-resistant
• High output light using a CREE™ LED at 6000k
• Ultra lightweight 900 lumen headlight, weighing in at only 130g including mount
• Secure on and off-road handlebar mount
• Fits standard and oversize 35mm handlebars
• Small compact design that’s perfect for helmet mounting (Helmet Mount Sold Separately)
• Convenient USB rechargeable
• Low battery indicator
• Lock Mode, perfect for use during storage and transporting the light. Press and hold the power button for 8-10 seconds to lock out the operation of the light.

Run Times

• Low - 11:00h at 200 Lumens
• Med - 4:30h at 450 Lumens
• High - 2:00h at 900 Lumens
• Flash - 11:00h at 900 Lumens
• Walk - 60:00h at 30 Lumens

What's Included

• LED Light Head
• Internal Li-Ion Battery
• Handlebar Mount fit up to 35mm
• USB Charging Cable

NiteRider Lumina Dual 1800 Headlight: $179.99

The NiteRider Lumina Dual 1800 Headlight is a new powerful option from NiteRider. With dual LED lights and 1800 lumens, this light has some serious power to handle any vigorous activity. While it's a bit of a larger light, the Lumina Dual 1800 makes for a great bar mounted light. This is the light with the most lumens we have in our write up, and it can run at full power for 45 minutes and 1500 lumens for 1.5 hours. If you are looking to get some serious lumens out front without taking up too much space or adding a battery pack, this light checks that box!

Specs

• 1800 max lumen output on Boost Mode
• All New Collimator Lens, distributes a smooth widespread beam pattern
• Long lasting 20 hour runtime at 100 lumens in Walk Mode
• 5 Light Levels plus 2 Daylight Flash Modes
• Secure on and off-road capable handlebar mount
• Fits standard and oversize 35mm handlebars
• Helmet mountable (Helmet Mount sold separately)
• Fast 3 hour charge via the included AC power charging adapter
• Low battery indicator
• Boost Mode indicator, power button will light up red and blue
• Lock Mode, perfect for use during storage and transporting the light. Press and hold the power button for 8-10 seconds to lock out the operation of the light.

Run Times

• Low - 6:00h at 350 Lumens
• Med - 3:00h at 700 Lumens
• High - 1:30h at 1500 Lumens
• Boost - 0:45h at 1800 Lumens
• Pulse Flash - 10:00h at 1500 Lumens
• Fast Flash - 16:30h at 1500 Lumens
• Walk Mode - 20:00h at 100 Lumens

What's Included

• Dual LED Headlight
• Internal Li-Ion Battery
• Handlebar Mount fits up to 35mm
• AC Power Charging Adapter

NiteRider Lumina Micro 650 Headlight

One of the smaller lights we have in our review is the Niterider Lumina Micro 650 Headlight. This little guy makes for a great spare, backup or commuting light to run during the day. While you might not want it as your only light during a serious night ride, you could use it for that if needed. I prefer to have something a little bit more powerful on the bars or helmet. In a very small and compact overall size, the Lumina Micro 650 can easily fit in a pocket or backpack. The last thing you want is to run out of light when it's dark out. 

Specs

• Daylight Visible 650 lumen output headlight
• All New Collimator Lens, produces a generous even widespread beam
• CREE® LED at 6000k
• Ride safely with Daylight Flash Mode!
• 4 Light Levels plus 1 Daylight Flash Mode
• FL1 Standard IP64, dust and water-resistant
• Secure on and off-road capable Handlebar Mount
• Fits standard and oversize 35mm handlebars
• Compact and lightweight design that’s perfect for helmet mounting (Helmet Mount Sold Separately)
• Convenient USB rechargeable
• Low battery indicator
• Lock Mode, perfect for use during storage and transporting the light.
• Press and hold the power button for 8-10 seconds to lock out the operation of the light.

Run Times

• Low - 7:00h at 150 Lumens
• Med - 3:00h at 350 Lumens
• High - 1:30h at 650 Lumens
• Flash - 6:30h at 650 Lumens
• Walk - 20:00h at 50 Lumens

What's Included

• LED Light Head
• Internal Li-Ion Battery
• Handlebar Mount fit up to 35mm
• USB Charging Cable

Light and Motion:

Light and Motion VIS Pro 1000 Trail Rechargeable Headlight: Gravel Light Grey/Black: $134.99

Light and Motion is the other brand that has been at the forefront of bicycle lights for a long time now, and this Light and Motion VIS Pro 1000 Trail Headlight really shows it. The VIS Pro 1000 Trail is a super solid all around light, great for any mounting position you want to put it in. Handlebars or helmet, the Light and Motion VIS Pro 1000 Trail comes with a few different mounting options so you can really get the best use as you need it. At 1000 lumens, it's super bright, and it can run for 1.5 hours on full power!

Specs

• 1000 Lumen Output certified to the FL-1 Standard with high powered premium CREE LED
• Infinite Power Assist: Charge and light off external USB power with an output of 150 lumens for daylight safety. Steady mode or SafePulse.
• Visibility is enhanced with bright red side lighting providing maximum safety through intersections and high-traffic areas
• SafePulse light pattern scientifically designed for maximum driver awareness of approaching cyclist without the inherent dangers of flashing lights
• Micro-peened reflector optimizes the beam pattern for road riders providing a smooth, even spot beam void of distracting hard edges
• Multiple power settings include Race Mode: a one-touch High/Medium toggle so trail riders can rapidly switch power between climbs and descents without having to cycle through various settings
• Mounting is simple and effective with ultra-grippy rubber ensuring light doesn't slip on regular or oversize handlebars
• Multi-color battery indicator is driven by custom firmware to provide accurate battery status throughout entire runtime
• Included helmet mount provides an ultra-lightweight and simple attachment solution so riders aren't encumbered by a bulky/heavy light setup
• Quick release allows the removal of the light in seconds while leaving the base mount on the handlebar
• Waterproof design eliminates the leading cause of bike light failure - water immersion
• FC (Fast Charge) Electronics ideal for 24 Hour Racing or for those that always forget to recharge their light from the previous ride
• Handlebar, Helmet & GoPro mounts included

Run & Charge Times

• Lumens: 1000 (high), 500 (medium), 250 (low), 500 (SafePulse)
• Runtime (minutes): 90 (high), 180 (medium), 360 (low), 720 (SafePulse)
• Beam Angle: 20° (Spot)
• Charge Time: 150 min

What's Included

• GoPro Mount, VIS, Urban & VYA
• Helmet mount
• Micro USB cable
• VIS/Urban bar mount

Lezyne:

Lezyne Lite Drive 1000XL Gloss Black: $79.99

The Lezyne Lite Drive 1000XL has gone through a few iterations over the past few years, and each time Lezyne improved on an already awesome light. The Lezyne Lite Drive 1000XL has a full aluminium shell which is pretty unique compared to the rest of the lights we are checking out. And with a full run time of 1.5 hours on full power, this can be a great, durable option if you are hard on parts. One really cool feature is the remote option which allows you to turn the light on and switch through power modes! 

Specs

Max lumens: 1000
Weight: 153g
Max runtime: 87 hours
Max lumen run time: 1.5 hours
Recharge time: 4 hours

CygoLite:

Cygolite Metro Pro 1100 Headlight $89.95

Cygolite is probably one of the brands that fly under the radar, but don't let that fool you. I've had an older Cygolite for about seven years now and it still runs at full power and full runtime. This Cygolite Metro Pro 1100 Headlight is also the best bang for the buck as far as max lumen and price go. Running at full power for an hour, the Cygolite is a serious bargain. 

Specs

•  Powerful 1100 lumen output with 9 light modes
• Built-in 24/7 Safety Technology® gives you a powerful selection of night and day modes (Boost - High - Medium - Low - SteadyPulse® - Triple Flash - Zoom - DayLightning® - Walking mode)
• SteadyPulse® mode alerts nighttime motorists with pulses while constantly lighting your path
• DayLightning® mode emits lightning-like flashes to highlight your presence in the brightest of daytime hours
• Enhanced Cycling Optics™ (ECO) expands your visibility with an extra wide and long range beam
• Micro USB rechargeable, internal battery lasts up to 100 hours
• Low battery indicator alerts you when a charge is needed
• Rugged, water resistant design
• Side illumination ports highlight your presence to nearby motorists
• Light activation lockout prevents accidental light activation
• Locktite™ quick release handlebar mount keeps the light securely fastened to the handlebar

Run Times

• Boost: 1:00 hrs
• High: 1:30 hrs
• Medium: 3:00 hrs
• Low: 10 hrs
• SteadyPulse®: 4:00 hrs
• DayLightning®: 14 hrs
• Triple Flash: 22 hrs
• Zoom: 4:00 hrs
• Walking: 100 hrs

What's Included

• Metro Pro™ headlight 
• Micro USB charging cable, 
• Locktite™ quick release handlebar mount

Honorable Mentions - NITERIDER Lumina Max:

While the lights above have been tested and proven, we are seeing a new line from NiteRider really pick up on sales and customers have been loving them. This is the new NiteRider Lumina MAX line that includes the 1500, 2000, and 2500 lights. With some great lumens to size ratio, the new Lumina MAX line is certainly one to check out!

Final Thoughts

While you might not be a fan of riding at night like me, the show must go on and sometimes that is the only option. I think night riding is much more enjoyable with new lights that don't have obnoxious cables and weigh as much as your helmet. No fuss, all fun when picking any of these lights. With USB rechargeable lights, it's as easy as charging your phone. Four out of five of these can mount on your handlebar or helmet, and all have enough run time that you can get in a solid ride post-work and still make it back with light to spare. 

This article was written / authored by Liam Woods. Liam has been in the bicycle industry for over 10 years as a racer, professional mechanic, service manager and as of late, media and content creator. Liam has ridden thousands of different bikes, ridden countless components, tested endless MTB apparel of all kinds and written reviews on it all. He's a key piece to the Worldwide Cyclery "All Things MTB" content creation puzzle. He also makes consistent appearances on the Worldwide Cyclery YouTube channel and Instagram.

If you are one strange human that would like to read a transcript of the video above, continue reading below!

Good day ladies and gentlemen it is that time of year again when the days are getting shorter and we unfortunately have to ride our bicycles at night and we need good proper lights to do it and we've been riding so far this season and it's been a little scary ever since a whole area 51 thing and the things you see out at nighttime

so aside from the extra testicle extraterrestrials out on the trail…

anyways night riding can be a ton of fun it's definitely a different feeling than riding at the daytime you get much more sort of zoned out and own your own little tunnel vision and it's kind of nice climbing because you can just climb up a big trail and not realize where you are on the thing and all sudden you're at the top and just a lot of fun it's a different experience riding it's really important to have a good set of lights and last year we did a top five lights video and we're gonna do the same thing this year where we're gonna kind of break down what lights we like which lights we use here at the shop and our customers use and love there's a ton of selection out there so I'm gonna talk about that too there's a ton of different brands and options you have when buying night riding lights I am of the jury that it is smart to get a good name brand high quality light because they are electronic so they do rank them by lumens right which is the ranking of how bright the thing is and if you buy these kind of generic no-name lights off of Amazon or Ebay or something the odds of that battery being quality the lumens actually being what they claim they are the thing lasting more than one season on you the thing having the amount of battery time it has is just a little shady how did you get what you pay for with lights and it is pretty meaningful because if you're out there in the dark and your light fails not a good sign so speaking of that usually night riding setups what I like to do is have a light on my handlebars and my helmet that's my preferred setup some people just do one of the other if you're only gonna have one light you got to have it on your helmet so the reason is is because your helmet having a light there you can see around corners so say you're climbing it uphill switchback and you're looking around the corner like that if the lights on your handlebars only and you don't have one on your helmet you can't see anything over there so if you are gonna ride one light only definitely put it on your helmet but preferably it's nice to have two ideally the one on your helmet goes a little bit further out so when you're kind of going fast and high speed the one on your helmets angled a little more outward so it's just maybe I would say like 20 to 40 feet ahead of you and then the one on your handlebars is a little bit more pointed down to sort of light up the trail directly in front of you like the first five to ten feet in front of you so that couple little tips on night riding and how that works if you haven't done it a lot it is a ton of fun there's a lot of other YouTube videos just talking about it and what it's like actually out there so to dive into the lights that we like and we really enjoy we're gonna talk about them right now and then we also have a blog post link in the description that goes into all the nitty-gritty details and features of all these sort of things throughout the video we're gonna run clips of each one of these lights individually out on the trail so you can kind of get an idea of what they look like back to back on the trail kind of how the light beam spreads we're gonna do our best to keep the camera exposure at the same level and then do some comparisons at the end to just show you guys how this thing's how these things all work on the trail um surprisingly year-to-year my setup has not changed there hasn't been a crazy amount of innovation and lights I think everyone kind of got to a point where they could only hit so many lumens per price point and so much light weight and battery power and all that sort of stuff and it is actually really good so my favorite light last year and this year is still the Knight Rider Lumina micro 850 that's this little guy right here this is an 850 lumen light it'll last an hour and a half at max power there's multiple settings on it so you can have it a like a dim mode that'll last several hours so when it comes to buying lights you just got to consider what you're doing are you gonna go for six hour long night rides you're gonna go for half an hour ones factor these things in and then for me I only ride usually for about 45 minutes or an hour at nighttime and when I climb I put it on the low setting mode and then when I descend I put it on the high setting mode so I have plenty of battery at the end of my hour-long ride and I'll run an 850 on my helmet and on my handlebar I like this because it's just small compact it charges fast and it's just a little simple light that works really well and it's 65 bucks so two of these things running you 130 dollars and you have an amazing setup to go night riding if you want to step up from that get some longer battery life or an even brighter light night rider also makes a 1200 boost these are a hundred bucks these have a bunch of other settings as well they're a little bit larger you can still put this on your helmet but it is a little heavy and the heavier of a light you put on your helmet the more you feel like a total bobble head so factor that in that's why this is a great helmet light because it doesn't have an stern old batteries so some lights you see you would just have sort of the bulbs in one place and then a cord running down which you can run into your hydration pack or something and then have your battery there that's all just kind of like a messy setup in my opinion I love these things where it's just like all all in one battery included so you can run something like this on the handlebars of this on your helmet or just two of these want to Pier one down there amazing setup so these are our favorite pics from Knight Rider they're just good reliable lights that we have like no issues with and everyone seems to love and they just work amazing so there's a ton of different brands out there I'm gonna talk about some other popular ones that we also sell and again check the links below in the video description because there is a link to a category of all the lights that we offer and we can rank them by best-selling so you can see what people are enjoying and then all the details on all this stuff as well so without further ado let's getting some other ones another really popular brand that we sell and it's been around for a long time is light and motion these guys are infamous for scuba-diving lights they make really good stuff there and they just make really high quality very boutique lights that are a bit pricier than some of the other brands but what we found with these guys is they do just make an extremely quality product that we've never seen a warranty issue with and they're like customer support it's amazing if you ever need help or anything like that so we have nothing but good things to say about these guys this is one of the more popular smaller lights it is the urban 1000 trail fast charge it's a hundred and thirty bucks the fast charge is a pretty cool feature that this thing has that a lot of other lights don't and that allows you to charge this thing I believe in about a couple hours as a full charge from zero to nothing which can be convenient when it's you know three o'clock in the afternoon and your buddies are like eh you want to go for a night ride and you realize your lights not charged so that's a nice feature another thing a lot of light motions have that others don't is a red light on the side which you can see now so that can help you be seen from other angles when you're out on the trail and your buddies are looking for you or you know someone's like looking down on the trailer there's hikers out there just cool a little feature that they have this thing has a one to six hour run time depending on what setting you have one hours if it's at max because these guys are really good at scuba dive lights this thing is 100% waterproof so in case you ride your bike underwater or you think you might get caught in the rain on your ride these are some of the best lights to go with so yeah that's light motion they also have eight as 1200 light which is a heavier larger light that a lot of people run on the handlebars it has a really long battery life and a super nice wide-angle beam so check that one out as well one thing I forgot to mention about the light motion lights which is really convenient as they come with a handlebar mount a helmet mount and this really cool GoPro mount if you have a GoPro mount anywhere you can use that and a charging cable which is pretty cool because a lot of the other brands don't include all those mounts but light motion does another thing that justifies their slightly higher price

last but not least we have a couple of acai go lights another really good reputable and nightlight brand out there that's been around for a long time the - 600 this thing is the lightest thing I think we sell at this lumens it's 95 grams and these things are kind of packed with features again like I was mentioning before definitely consider all the features you're looking for that makes sense for the type of night riding you do one thing that's unique about this is the little flashes it has up top and those are really good for being seen when you're riding on the road just like a day flashing light and those will go for 80 hours so that's forever so if you're in a case where you kind of have to ride maybe 20 30 minutes of rode before you get to the actual trailhead this could be an incredible light for you especially if you're looking for something that's ultra lightweight for your helmet 95 grams is amazing so 65 bucks 600 lumens out of the main beam there and you're actually on the trail so a great light for your helmet Saigo light - pro 600 this one the Metro pro 1100 this is our best-selling saigo light and I think the reason is is in a fully compact light this has one of the widest beams of any of the other ones out there so you can check that out in the video footage right now this is a great light handlebar or you could run it on your helmet it's still pretty light the prices fluctuate but they're usually around 80 bucks which is really good for an 1,100 lumen light does have fast charge as well so a half-hour charge time a bunch of different modes on it these things are really packed with features psycho lights kind of notorious for just packing their lights with a bunch of really cool features which can be super useful depending on your use case or maybe not useful at all depending on your use case but some to factor in we were looking at features so that's that there is a ton of great light brands out there so a lot to choose from but hopefully this helped you see some good brands that make some good stuff make sure to check all the links below in the video description to check out our blog write-up on all these lights and little specs and details and just our category of Lights in general let us know down in the comments do you guys ride at nighttime and you have fun do you like it or do you hate it do you just put your bike away for the winter hit that subscribe button and we'll see you the next one.