Bike lamp is necessary if you ride at night, especially for those who are living in an area where there are lots of small road lack of proper lighting. If you are also prepared to do some tracking after work, Cygolite Expilion 800 Vs NiteRider Lumina 700 will be two of the best options to consider. They are very bright and will illuminate your path but, go check which will be the best option below before shopping.
In this article, we are going to give you information about:
- Which Bike Lamp to Choose
- What are Cygolite Expilion 800 and NiteRider Lumina 700
- What Cygolite Expilion 800 and NiteRider Lumina 700 Look Like
- How are the Brightness of Cygolite Expilion 800 and NiteRider Lumina 700
- What Cygolite Expilion 800 and NiteRider Lumina 700 can offer
- How are the Battery Life of Cygolite Expilion 800 and NiteRider Lumina 700
- Cygolite Expilion 800 Vs NiteRider Lumina 700
On-Road and Off-Road Bike Lamp
Just like any lamp, bike lamp purpose is mainly to illuminate something and it is our path when placed at the front bar but they can be used as a safety light as well when you are riding on the road with other drivers or riders. There is no standard on what lamp should be used on our bike so it can be a daunting task to shop for one especially if this is your first time planning to ride at night.
The ideal lamp should be matched with your application and not all of us will ride on the same road. In general, there will be two types of light; the one for safety and the other to illuminate your path in which the latter must be bright enough for different applications. For those who are riding on the street, as long as there is enough ambient light to let you get noticed by motorists, pedestrians, and other cyclists, a small safety lights like those 10 lumens will be sufficient.
If you are a commuter bike, those that can be charged will be more ideal and a lamp higher than 60 Lumens should be better for headlight. Rather than steady beam, if you are more concerned about getting noticed, a flashing light is actually more useful and attention grabbing. We can put these additional lights on handlebar, helmet, your backpack, forks, under the seat, or even on arm and legs. If your place has lots of motorists, adding some lighting on the side is effective as well.
The lamp choice that we used on the road and off-road will be different because you will have far more minimal amount of illumination on different terrains and for those who plan to trail at night, you will also need a far brighter bike lamp to go. The brightness can be as bright as you need them to be and we can mount them either on the helmet or handlebar to properly illuminate the path including the obstacles may present.
Mounting them on handlebar may cause shadows from some obstacles while having one on the helmet is not ideal if the terrain has many rocks or constantly causing you to jump around for it will cause the lamp to move around as well. There is no limit on how bright a bike lamp should be but if you are riding on the road with super bright lamp, just make sure to tilt it down a little bit so other road users can still see what’s in front of them when encountering your bike.
| Cygolite Expilion 800 | NiteRider Lumina 700 | |
|---|---|---|
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| Shipping Weight | 10.4 ounces | 15.2 ounces |
| Product Dimensions: | 4 x 1.5 x 1.5 inches | 9 x 9 x 3 inches |
| Best Price | click here | click here |
About Cygolite Expilion 800 and NiteRider Lumina 700
Overall, a dimmer light is ideal for road riding while a brighter lamp is better for trail or off-road riding. Since many of them are removable, it is easy to swap the lamp depending on your needs and in general they are quite light as well, so having some on your handlebar will not be an issue. To ease you shopping for the best or most ideal bike lamp, setting a budget or lumens rate can be a nice start.
There are so many bike lamp brands in the market and all of them will be able to illuminate your path but depending on their brightness or overall characters, not all will show you the same performance. Cygolite and NiteRider are two of the most popular bike lamps brands and what’s impressive from these companies is that they always seem to have the perfect product for your application including those with higher lumens rating with a varying price range and competitive to their peers.
If you are a commuter or road rider only, a smaller and cheaper Cygolite Metro 360 Vs 400 will be a great option to go for but for those who will do some quick adventure off-road at night, Cygolite Expilion 800 and NiteRider Lumina 700 are the two most attractive choices to consider. As their name suggests, both of them are very bright and meant to a more extreme condition in which there is very little illumination present. When used on well-lit road they can be too bright at the strongest mode.
Both of them are the high-end model from their brands and many riders have been using these bike lamps while also being satisfied about how bright that can emit light. Besides ideal for road riders, they are also great if your road or area has very minimal illumination. With an addition of few safety lights, installing any of Cygolite Expilion 800 and NiteRider Lumina 700 on your handlebar will provide more than sufficient illumination.
Cygolite Expilion 800 and NiteRider Lumina 700 Design
From the outside, both of them are looking like any bike lamps out there with a minor design differences that come from their own company. They are rigid and well-built yet not very heavy as well so carrying a set of two should not be a problem but, side by side, it feels like the Lumina 700 is actually slightly heavier than Expilion 800. In the box you will get the lamp and their Li-ion battery as well as the charger.
You can charge them from various devices including laptop or computer on the go with indicator that tells you if the battery is full. As a front lamp, both of them are packed with a clasp installation and we do love this type of mounting for they are very easy to use, but we can also put them on our helmet as well especially when using two of them, either from the same model or not to give the day riding experience at night.
Cygolite Expilion 800 and NiteRider Lumina 700 Brightness
The first thing you may want to know about a bike lamp is their lumens and as their name suggest, Cygolite Expilion 800 has 800 Lumens brightness while NiteRider Lumina 700 is rated at 700 Lumens. In theory, the former must be brighter than its rival but in real life this is not always the case because beside brightness, you will also pay attention to beam quality as well. This will tell you how far their light can illuminate your path and how even their light to show you the area in your path.
Surprisingly, while Cygolite is brighter at least 100 lumens than Lumina, in practice they are very similar to each other and still very bright for different applications including for trail and off-road riding. You can see that they illuminate a very good distance; around 140 meters ahead but side by side, the 800 is slightly brighter in the middle in which the center of the road. This difference however, doesn’t bring any noticeable effect in real-life experience.
Cygolite Expilion 800 and NiteRider Lumina 700 Brightness Mode
The next point we want to talk about is the light mode in both of these bike lamps because there are several different modes that you can use these lamps with. Starting with Lumina 700, you will have 5 modes including one flashing mode to alert other road users. The continuous modes are high, medium, low, and walk mode in which the latest is their most energy saving function for those who ride at dawn and there are still adequate ambient light around.
The highest setting is great for off-road riding but this mode will consume the most of your battery. On the other hand, Expilion 800 also comes with various modes; 4 for constant lighting modes with boost, high, medium, and low combined with 2-in-1 Steady Pulse, day flash, walking and S.O.S. The Steady Pulse illumination is combining a steady brightness with an alerting flash so you can both see the road or path while also making sure other road users can see you from afar.
Cygolite Expilion 800 and NiteRider Lumina 700 Battery Life
Last but not least is the battery life because depending on your activity, we may need a prolonged working hours. Battery can last between 2.3 hours to about 38 hours in Expilion while Lumina will last from 1.5 hours to 18 hours at the lowest brightness mode. What’s impressive is that in addition to its long battery life, Expilion battery is not built in the unit thus, you can have more than one battery and then just swap them to keep the brightness.
Cygolite Expilion 800 vs NiteRider Lumina 700
Both of them are a great option if you love riding at night and plan to do some trail or off-road riding after work. They are very bright but Expilion is slightly brighter than Lumina yet, in real life they are equally amazing and reliable. Our biggest pros about Cygolite Expilion is that it has swappable battery which means we can ride as long as we want with backup battery that we have been fully charged previously while Lumina’s battery is built in the unit.
Conclusion
All in all you can go with either of them and still be satisfied yet, if we are to choose, we highly recommend the Cygolite Expilion 800 because not only it is very bright, the lamp also has swappable battery to let you ride longer.