Best Bike Lights of 2025 for Safety & Visibility Ideal for E-Bikes

Our tester was disappointed to find that the mounting platform is fixed and has no ability to rotate. It definitely improves your visibility to motorists along with your situational awareness and could potentially save your life. We’d like to see widespread support for the Varia on other popular cycling computer platforms.

Most powerful rear bike light

All the lights here are of decent quality, but wear and tear can affect all tech, and having a light that isn’t working is legally and from a safety standpoint the same as having no light at all. The law differs from country to country, and from state to state, but as a rule you should run at least ‘be seen’ light front and rear during the hours of darkness even if you aren’t legally obliged to do so. There isn’t much more to it than that – to do otherwise is making what is already a risky activity even more so. If you’re riding off road, where the environment is naturally darker thanks to tree cover and being away from light pollution then you’ll want 1,500 at least. More will make your life easier, but you only really need to get into 3,000 or more when you’re riding faster, or on more technical terrain. Technically it is the measure of ‘luminous flux’, with one lumen being equal to one candela of luminous intensity, in the visible spectrum, over a solid angle of one steradian.

Bicycle lights also act as an essential daylight-hours safety feature, with many now featuring daytime running modes. Plenty of excellent front and rear light sets can be found in the $ range while Double O® rear lights range from about $10 to $80. The Cygolite Dash Pro 600 is our favorite value option, boasting excellent performance with its 600 lumens of brightness and $65 price tag. Front bike lights are brighter than rear bike lights because they must illuminate the road ahead.

What is the law for bike lights?

Most of my riding is solitary, but when ReAKT is switched on the light flares up under braking, acting in an identical manner to a car. I really like the downward pointing LED that illuminates everything underneath the rear of the bike with a red glow, making you seem bigger than a single light source ordinarily would. The Knog Blinder Pro 600 ticks all the boxes for a great commuter light. The 600 lumen brightness is enough to keep absent minded taxi drivers paying attention, but not so bright you’re going to blind anyone coming towards you.

Its OLED screen shows the remaining battery life for whichever of the five light levels and four daylight flash modes (from 275 to the max 1,200 lumens) you’re using. However, the plenty-bright Group Low Steady Flash mode has a longer battery life—70 hours—and a slightly dimmer beam, which felt more courteous when I was riding with others. For daytime riding, I cycled through the truly arresting High Steady, DayLightning Flash, and Bzzz Flash modes. They’re usually run at night but increasingly riders are opting to run them as daytime running lights on every ride for added visibility. Both front and rear options fall into this category, and the majority of the best budget bike lights fall here too.

Bikes & Gear

Perhaps most importantly, the best bicycle light is the one you’ll actually use. Make sure the one you choose is simple to mount, easy to operate, and compact enough that you won’t mind taking the lights with you on even the shortest trips. Bontrager’s Flare RT certainly wins the battle for the most compact design. It’s downright tiny, in fact, and easy enough to stash in your pocket simply by removing it from the mount.

Those two components connect via a small screw, which is not ideal, but it’s also not something you’ll need to mess with frequently. CatEye’s Rapid X3 features some of the best side visibility in our test. The 150 lumens pump out brightly both to the rear of the rider and to the sides. The flash modes seem particularly useful for grabbing the attention of drivers.

We don’t recommend using the headlight mode—it’s just not strong enough. However, the taillight mode offers decent battery life, a color-coded battery warning button, and a red ring that boosts lateral visibility. If your commute is short or lightly trafficked, the NiteRider Swift 300 may be all you need to see and be seen on the road. About the size of a nail polish bottle, this light will kick out 300 lumens for up to two hours. My usual rides are between two and four hours, though occasionally a lot longer even in winter, and daytime running the whole time tests out lights’ daytime credentials. I also swap the lights between road, gravel, and commuting/general pub duties to see how they stack up not just in illumination but in useability, which is especially important with things like aero seatposts.