| Light
& Motion may be a newcomer to the bike lighting market, but the company
is no rookie - it has more than nine years of experience making underwater
light systems. The Apex DLI setup we tested is the top-of-line, bar-mounted
light coupled with the mid-line battery. Features include smart battery
circuitry that prevents overcharging and deep discharging, three levels
of brightness for both lights, adjustable beam patterns and "weatherproof
not waterproof" construction. But the thing that got us giddy is the mounting
system. A small clamp mounts to the handlebar, and the thermoplastic light-head
slides on and off this mount without tools. Then you get to the trick part:
each light has about 180 degrees of adjustment up/down and left/right. This
means you can adjust the main and secondary light independently. They stay
put wherever you point them - jumps and drops don't cause them to wander.
How strong are they? Instead of the traditional watt rating, Apex uses lumens,
which it says is a measure of actual light output instead of power consumption.
Our main light put out 300 lumens at full power and the secondary , 400
at full power. That's about 10 and 15 watts, by the way. If it's voltage
you need to know, our battery pack was rated at 10.8. In laymen's terms
- it was really bright. For the best performance, and mounting simplicity,
we used LMI's Retro NH battery. The NiMH (nickel metal hydride) battery
fits in a bottle cage and is about half the size of a small water bottle.
A nice touch is the built in strap that hooks over the cage to secure the
battery. All of the Apex batteries are NiMH, which are about 40% more efficient
than NiCad batteries while weighing about the same. Also, NiMH batteries
don't have a memory, so you can charge them any time (without waiting for
them to discharge fully). Compared to other systems, the Apex is more flood
like, which gives you a huge circle of light to ride in. The illumination
pattern is nice and even, with no strange dark holes for rocks to hide in.
More of a focused spot on the secondary light would have made fast fire-road
descending more fun, but in most situations there was more than enough light
to ride in. The switch setup is our biggest complaint. There are four switches
- two turn on the lights and two adjust light output. We prefer something
similar to the Niterider design, where a single, remote switch turns the
light on full power with the first push, then steps the output down with
successive pushes before coming back around to full power. To shut it off,
you hold the button in for a few seconds. So you never have to take your
hand off the bar to adjust the brightness. Because of all the features and
the high-performance battery, our test system costs a shocking $300. You
don't have to sink that much: Apex lights come in a variety of on-bike combinations
ranging from $165 to $325. Helmet systems cost $150 to $200. The run times
are all over the place with so many combinations (2 lights w/ 3 power settings
each) but the basic info is: 3 hours for only the main light at full power,
2 hours for only the secondary at full power and 1.5 for both at full power.
That's a lot of time considering you should probably be home having dinner
with the family. -- Matt Phillips |
