Joe gave me a Serfas E-Lume 450 bike headlight, which I really like. And I just noticed it is on sale on Amazon, so I thought I would finally get around to reviewing it. I hope my short and sweet review of it persuades you not to miss this great deal! In a nutshell, the very reputable Serfas company has achieved its aim of developing one of the best bike lights on the market at the very best value. Especially right now!
My Emotion Street 650 comes with Shimano dynamo lights which are great to have year round. However, biking in the relentless rain and pervasive gloom of the Pacific Northwest (basically, a rain forest with a city dropped into it) requires you to be lit like a Christmas tree to avoid becoming a hood ornament. I achieve this with a combo of dynamo lights, Monkey Lectric lights, and now, my Serfas E-Lume 450 bike headlight. Serfas makes a great range of bike lights, and I like to pair this headlight up with my Serfas Thunderbolt tail light (which Joe reviewed here).
With 450 lumens, the Serfas E-Lume 450 bike headlight is very powerful (see full Technical Specs at the bottom of this post). As a frame of reference, bear in mind that the average car low beam is 700 lumens. The light is very easy to attach and remove with a universal mounting bracket. Since I have more than one bike this makes life a little less expensive.
The Serfas E-Lume 450 bike light offers 4 levels of brightness, plus you can choose steady light or intermittent. However, I never use flashing lights any more, since Joe did some research and found out that many cyclists really hate flashing bike lights, and can get migraines, or get disoriented, when other cyclists are flashing! (Read all about When to Use Flashing Bike Lights in Joe’s popular post here.)
The light is charged with a USB cable. Great – no more lights that fall into pieces every time you need to change the batteries! You just attach the light to your computer with a universal micro USB cable (I lost mine, and we just use Joe’s Garmin USB cable). It also comes with a plug-in charger, which I also lost, but don’t miss, as the USB charger is quite enough.
The Serfas tag line is “the night belongs to us”… yes it does! I lost my pannier the other night, and rode to and from work three times looking for it. The Serfas light lit my way and lasted all the way!
Bottom Line on the Serfas E-Lume 450 Bike Headlight
This is a traditional small bike light that sits on your front handlebars. But it’s modern in the sense that it’s charged by a USB cable and is very bright. In this category of modern-traditional bike light, it’s excellent. It’s very, very bright, yet has quite a wide beam. It has the feel of quality in your hands, and the quality shows when you’re out in the dark. You can usually buy the Serfas E-Lume 450 bike light from Amazon for under $50 (but on sale at the time of posting at $25!)
All in all, this sturdy, very bright light rates an Average Joe Cyclist Gold Bike Star for being a great light at a budget price.
Technical Specs of the Serfas E-Lume 450 bike light
- Max Lumens: 450
- New 3 level battery level indicator
- Last mode memory (saves you having to set it to your preferred mode every time you switch it on!)
- Water resistant to IPX4 (protected from splashing water, no matter the direction)
- Four brightness levels and two flash modes (steady and intermittent)
- From the Serfas website: “All Serfas Lights are RoHS compliant. The RoHS directive restricts the use of six hazardous materials in the manufacture of various types of electronic and electrical equipment. Although RoHS is not mandatory in the United States, for over 4 years Serfas has elected to do the right thing for the environment, and only manufacture lights that are RoHS compliant.”
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