That light looks amazing … until I checked the price. 500 €, wowzers. But it looks like a scaled down car head light, so I get it. Especially having a remote control would be nice.
The Outbound light does allow pass-through charging though and comes with a very handy 90 degree USB charger that I found made it very easy to charge from a battery pack in my top tube bag
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That’s a great light with a stVzo cut off, replaceable 18650 or 21700 batteries, usb charging in light, and long run times.
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I’m not sure if anyone else has experienced this, but the Outbound light is too heavy for most “out front” mounts and I actually snapped one off using the Outbound Trail Evo on a go-pro mount on a gravel ride. Thankfully my Garmin was on a leash and caught the whole assembly.
There was a nice fatigue thumbnail fracture surface on the mount, I guess the vibration got to it. The mount was an Amazon “child labor special”, so I initially chalked it up to poor quality, but I started looking into actual brand name mounts like the Garmin brand, and most of them have weight limits that are exceeded by the combo of the OB Trail Evo and a Garmin computer.
Beware the cutoff, I guess for road biking where there’s not significant pitching of your bike its okay, but on a mountain bike (where I think most people actually ride with lights) it sucks to hit the brakes and have it go dark as your bike pitches forward and the cutoff drops. I think this is why the cutoff is not a common thing on most lights.
I use an Outbound Trail Evo and its amazing, I just cover the lens with my hand if I see a car or person coming at me. The light is amazing btw. I use the crap out of it on mtb trails, I’m no slower descending with it at night than I am in the daylight.
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I got the Outbound Detour as soon as it was released. I was getting flashed on night training rides before, but not with the cutoff. I’ve got it on a K-edge out front mount using their GoPro attachment. The only downside to the cutoff is high speed twisty descents where the inside corner goes dark at high lean angles. The Lupine option would be nice for that scenario.
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My suggestion, for road or MTB, is to have two lights for night riding; one on helmet and the other on the handle bars.
A helmet light will let you see anything you look at. On the road, you need to look at cross traffic, look to the side of the road for deer or other creatures that might run out, and you need to be able to point your light at cars for a few seconds to make sure they have seen you (again cross traffic). On the MTB, you want to be able to look ahead past the turn and also have to look for creatures. So the helmet light is for safety and awareness of/to your surrounding environment and creatures. On the road, I won’t even ride during the day without a helmet light to grab drivers’ attention when they are coming from the side.
But chances are your helmet light has lower brightness and battery capacity (if it does have enough, it’s pretty heavy). So putting a more powerful light on the bars acts as your primary method of seeing what’s ahead. It also allows you to still see ahead of you with your peripheral vision while you move your head around to stay situationally aware.
Having two lights also gives two additional benefits: redundancy (dead battery or failure) and enhanced depth perception. With two lights placed in different locations you don’t have sharp shadows cast by a single light. It makes it so much easier to see and judge potholes and other objects.
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There’s a few options, Trek makes an adapter for their blendr lights that allows them to be attached to the GoPro mount. I don’t like the larger Trek lights as much as some of the others mentioned here but they do work just fine. Exposure I know has a smaller mount that works with some of their little lights and a GoPro mount. Not sure about the larger stuff. And my Outbound light will work with a GoPro mount.
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I fully agree - Lupine makes the best lights. I have one, and really like it. I haven’t been riding in the dark much in recent years, but their light is the best one I’ve ever found. I think they’ve probably improved their battery system as well – I had to jerry-rig something where I put my (rectangular) battery into a bottle so that it was better mounted on the bike. But the light was the brightest and had the best beam width I’ve ever ridden with - it was pretty much like a car light, and I never worried about hitting stuff when riding with it.
If you aren’t using a helmet mounted light as well, you should. I think would eliminate the issue for you.
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Yeah, I’ve got one (Outbound also) for mtb riding. It’d defeat the ‘not blinding other users’ purpose of the Detour, though. I’ve just got to back down the descending speed at night, which is probably prudent anyway. I’d like if they had the light ‘fan’ up at the corners, but that’s probably a heavier optical lift.
Can you tell me more? I immediately noticed that the battery was external. Where do you mount it? The velcro straps they include don’t look great and in my experience will rub off the clear coat.
Indeed, looking at the construction, it really looks like a miniature headlight rather than a bike light. How do you like the remote control?
When I saw it, I immediately thought that I’d need one on my commuter …
just a heads up. that same light is sold on aliexpress for around 20$. you can choose with or without the rechargeable battery, so it won’t get stuck in customs I guess?
Grabbed a few pictures real quick. The battery is external, I like to mount it on top of the top tube, but it also easily fits underneath the top tube in the same place. I prefer top because it’s easy to push the battery indicator button there and see the indicator lights. The velcro straps are actually pretty nice in my opinion, they have two grippy silicone strips that keeps things from moving around, haven’t noticed any wear on the paint. I do have an adhesive frame protection sticker along the entire top edge of the top tube. To be honest, it’s not an S-Works, it’s not going to end up in a museum, and I’ve put over 40,000 km on it… i.e. I don’t mind it ending up showing some age after a while.
The remote control is great. I have it tucked out of the way, and can easily press it with my thumb while on the hoods.
@mhandwerk it took me a while, but I did buy mine off of Kleinanzeigen (online classifieds), I ended up paying 250€ for a barely used light, absolute bargain.
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Wow, that’s an amazing deal. When I checked, the MSRP in Germany was double (499 €).
Does the battery wobble and wander around on the top tube, e. g. when you hit a pothole or ride on cobbles?
Also, what about the connector, how is it holding up?
Yeh, it took some patience, there were a lot of scam ads, but waiting paid off.
I haven’t had the battery slip at all, unless I do something dumb like full on sprint and bump it with my knee (on those rides it should be under the top tube to avoid that). I haven’t had it move on the gravel bike or hardtail MTB either.
The connector is good so far, my only quibble is that it’s very snug, and I don’t want to damage it by pulling it apart by the cable, so it takes a bit of finger strength to hold the connector and pull it apart.
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I have logged a LOT of pre-sunrise miles since i started riding, and have been using the same light setup for the last few years. I run 2 Nightrider 650; one on the head and one on the bars. Running them both on low gives plenty of light for all but the 30mph+ downhills, and kicking them both up to medium takes care of that issue. I never have to use the high setting, and can get 4hrs in the dark, then flash mode for another couple of hours with no issue.
I started running the helmet light after i had a cheapo light on the bars just quit while i was rolling about 20mph. I said never again to that problem.
It looks like @DwayneB gave you some really good photos. Mine is over 10 years old now, and it didn’t come with a remote so I can’t address that part of it. Mine has also been sitting on the shelf for quite awhile. I think mine is the Betty, but probably an older version. I don’t know if they still have the handlebar attachment system of just a really big o-ring - I found it really hard to attach to my bars, TBH. My battery is the larger rectangular one and I would attach it to the top tube as well. I didn’t ride dirt with it - just road - but don’t remember having problems with it bouncing around or anything. I don’t think it ever scratched my bikes at all. I definitely preferred having it in the bottle, and my husband figured out a way to put it in a bottle. But it looks like they have an alternate bottle-shaped battery for sale, although it’s not cheap either. I’ll have to look at it to see how the performance is - like I said, I haven’t been riding outside in the dark for quite awhile. Mostly my schedule changed and I was able to ride a little later, combined with just not being as interested in riding in the cold and dark. Although I did just finally solve the cold-finger problem, so maybe I’ll be a little more interested now…
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On the topic of helmet mounted lights, just be aware that normally helmets are not tested or certified with that solid body strapped to them. Not only there’s a risk of cracking and penetration, but the light might also increase the rotational forces (acting as a lever when hitting the ground).
Insurers are also aware of this, so in case of a consequential accident they can start having ideas…
In the end this should come to everyone’s personal responsibility, but please make an informed decision.
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My Outbound Detour arrived today, and I think I’m going to return it. Before I do though, I wanted to check and see if I just got a defective light. I recognize that this is individual preference, but I prefer my Garmin Varia Headlight. The downside of the Varia is that it’s much more yellow than the Detour, which has a much cleaner white light. However, the Detour has “stripes” or “lines” that are very prominent in the beam, and I find them distracting.
Varia
Detour
Are these stripes normal, or did I get a defect?