Revolights City v2.0 Review

Visibility

One of the biggest selling points of the Revolights is, of course, the visibility that the lights create. At 16 lumens per bulb working in concert to create something more than just spinning lights stuck on a wheel, they certainly accomplish a heightened visibility on a couple of fronts.

The obvious one is that they are, after all, bright lights attached to the bike. They help the bike to be seen very well from behind and the front. A little of that initial impact is lost as you move off center, but surprisingly little; most likely due to the protrusion on the LED lights from the ring and the illumination of the bike’s tire.

The Revolights are by far one of the best sets of lights to offer side illumination that I have seen. This is definitely one area where they stand apart from the pack of standard bike mounted lights.

Revolights illuminate bike from the side…

The Revolights also achieve a degree of visibility by being pretty unique. Bright headlights and tail lights are a given out on the road. But, a bar of lights, reminiscent of TRON are a bit unique.

As alluded to earlier, you have to be a bit ready to be noticed. On my initial night journey with these installed (a short 1.5 mile round trip grocery run), I was asked by 2 people in cars what they were, and had a young adult stop in his tracks and shout out, “DUDE! Those lights are AWESOME!” I kid you not; even the jaded youth of Portland found these to be comment worthy.

Call it shock value. Call it cool factor. These lights, inadvertently or not, get you noticed.

…and they illuminate the bike from other angles…

Battery life

Each wheel’s set of lights come with a rechargeable battery pack that locks into a bracket that is lashed to the hub via zip ties. Thankfully, they hold a pretty decent charge. Revolights states that a charge should last 4 hours and on a recent training ride, I was able to confirm that they do meet this specification for the front, but will most likely exceed it with the rear.

That rainy, cold, windy, hilly, and generally challenging training ride ending up extending to 3.5 hours. Both front and rear light sets were still going strong when I rolled into the garage. I was honestly a little surprised! The front set did fail about half an hour later on another ride, and while the rear lights were still going, they certainly lost the impact that they had when fully charged; another way to put it – they dimmed out.

…including rear

This dimming brings out one of my very few complaints about the Revolights; there’s not really anything that indicates level of charge. You’re either on or off. The switch turns blue when charged and active/on; turns off when the unit is off; turns red/orange when charging; and shuts off once it’s charged. That’s it. No blinking when low, no red when low. This feels like a bit of an oddity for me in a rechargeable light system and has lead to me having the front lights give out on me mid-ride on more than one occasion.

From the front, the light is low but bright

 
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