Review on 🚴 Apace USB Rechargeable Bike Tail Light - Super Bright 100 Lumens LED Rear Light, Easily Clippable Red Taillight for Enhanced Cycling Safety by Peris Auditore

Form and Function: First, if you have an aero seatpost, the support pads that come with it may not be ideal. You can probably find a way to get it to mount. It's also too big for most seatstays and not easy to mount to saddle rails or saddlebags. Anything is possible with a little creativity, but works best with round seat posts. It includes lots of mounting spacers and straps, and a cute little pouch. For me, a slightly larger size is good. This offers high overall performance without high punctiform intensity in close-up vision. It's less glare, easier to focus and pinpoint, but still visible from a distance. It weighs approx. 52 grams including lining and straps. Seems fairly sheltered from the rain. Overall it looks and feels like a quality gadget. It charges fully in about two hours (I haven't tracked that closely), which is the advertised 0.5A charging current. The daylight mode is very comfortable, it is clearly visible during the day. My riding friends said they saw him far on the road during the day. I think it uses the full 100 lumens, or a significant fraction of it, in short bursts to grab attention and last a long time. I wouldn't use it at night. The pulse mode is interesting for the night. I'm not a fan of night time flicker modes, but the ripple smoothly darkens and lightens without turning off, improving the ability to focus the light while still improving peak brightness slightly without sacrificing the duration of the constant brightness is reduced. Mode Claims: It comes with a manual with the following modes listed: Low 12 hours Medium 6.5 hours High 2 hours Slow flash 45 hours (standard dual flash, low power) Smart Flash (TM) 7 hours (similar to slower Flash, but brighter ) Daylight Flash(TM) 15 hours (short bursts of high intensity) BritePulse(TM) 4.5 hours (pulsating wave over time, never turns off) Performance test: Good: I did some fairly quantitative tests with carried out with this flashlight. I don't have an absolute reference, but at High I measure that it's about double the total output (stray light from all directions) of the claimed 50 lumen Lunar MK-II and has a similar radiation pattern. This is a smaller and lighter flashlight that fits seat springs and has a lower stated run time and more apparent brightness. Both LEDs will dim slightly as the voltage decreases, eventually dropping to around 70%. Lamps often don't have voltage regulation, which requires a bit more electronics. Medium steady mode is initially about 1/4 of high mode output and low mode is about 1/8. All of this looks normal and is consistent with the claims of at least one competitor. I also tried testing the daylight mode but didn't use the right equipment for the pulsed output. It doesn't appear as bright to the eye as in High mode, but fast pulses are difficult to perceive. I was able to get readings that were close to full brightness despite not having fast-responding sensors, and as mentioned, it was very noticeable from a distance. Ugly: After 20 minutes in continuous high brightness mode, the brightness drops not only to an initial voltage-related drop in brightness to about 75% but also again to about 75% of the permanently programmed drop in time and drops again just over half after 1 hour and 20 minutes and at that time reached about 20% of its initial brightness. I get almost 3 hours total runtime before switching to flashing mode to save battery. It takes about 1.25 hours (they say 30 minutes and I'm glad it's longer). The two stages are not dependent on temperature or voltage. These are just hard coded timing steps and appear to exist to extend run time while maintaining the original high light output. The steps down are even done in multiple steps with an interval of a few seconds, making it less likely that you will catch it. If I reset the light after each programmed level, it follows the same power curve as the moonlight, getting a 1.5 hour runtime instead of the advertised 2 hours. In its current form, High mode is similar to "Turbo Boost". You turn it on when you have to drive a few miles through heavy city traffic, but after that it drops again. To me this looks a bit like runtime requirement cheating, or at best not explained up front, and personally I just don't find it an ideal configuration either. If I want to use a high level for a short period of time I will, and if I need to use a low level for a longer period of time I will go to a low level. To their credit, the support manager was very helpful and responsive. He's spoken to their manufacturers and verified the issue and I think he's sincere in saying he wants to fix it. I don't think they can fix that and still get the high-end 2 hour runtime they claim. I think at 1.5 hours it's still a great light, especially at this price point, but they should remove the steps. In their defence, their closest competitor (more than 3x the Apace sale price) has the same battery capacity and quoted runtimes don't match. They seem to be able to do similar tricks and I understand the need to compete in flashlight sales. Overall: A long chase with excellent day and night capabilities, especially for the price, but with some limitations in mounting options and some unnecessarily dubious performance requirements. It may not be what you expect from the description. Customer service seems to be seriously tackling this issue, and the light can still be a good buy, especially at a promotional price that's about three times lower than a competitor.