Lezyne Hecto Drive 400XL

The Lezyne Hecto Drive 400XL front light is a compact and colourful addition to your bike that ensures you can both see and be seen throughout the winter months.

• Pros: Compact, range of settings, colour options, good value
• Cons: Battery life

The light is fairly small, compact and lightweight. It comes in five different colour: silver, black, red, blue, or purple. While it doesn't affect the performance of the light, I do like the fact that it comes in this range of colours to brighten up your bars, something few brands offer with their lights.

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The rubber strap makes the light very easy to mount, remove and swap between bikes, while still being very secure. It offers plenty of options to fit different diameters and sat securely on all my bikes, including the more aero profile bar on my race bike. I was especially impressed to find that it also has settings small enough to fit on the aero bars on my time trial bike, something few lights do. The strap is thick and durable and has shown no signs of wear so far.

The light charges directly from an integrated USB stick, meaning there are no cables to misplace or forget. This was particularly convenient if I needed to charge it between commutes during the day. Unfortunately, this was something I had to do fairly regularly when commuting in full darkness since the battery life is quite short. Charging time, however, is also fairly short at just over two hours for a full charge.

On the 400-lumen full beam setting, the battery life is just one hour. On the beam comparison engine above, this appears somewhat dimmer than both the Moon Meteor C3 and Oxford Ultratorch Pro 300 recently tested, despite claiming a higher output. It is bright enough for the occasional unlit street, but I wouldn't hit daytime riding speeds using this on dark lanes.

The limited battery life means that particularly long commutes in the dark or night rides are out of the question too. However, on some of the dimmer or flashing modes the battery lasts upwards of 10 hours and is great for being seen on street-lit roads.

> Buyer's Guide: The best 2017/2018 front lights for cycling

In total, the Hecto Drive offers eight different modes, with four full beams from 400 lumens down to 15, three flashing modes and a pulse mode. For a fairly budget light, the wide range of settings is impressive and great for inner city commuting. The mode memory function is also useful, meaning the light turns on in the same mode that was last used.

An LED in the power button changes colour in several stages to indicate just how much battery life remains, which is really useful and helped remind me to charge the light between rides.

According to Lezyne, the light has a water resistance rating of IPX7, effectively meaning that it is safe in the rain but shouldn't be submerged for long periods of time. I have so far had no issues at all when riding in the rain or cleaning the light with a damp cloth. It has also survived being thrown around and dropped several times – all in the name of testing, naturally! – and appears to be fairly hardwearing.

With an RRP of £33, this is one of Lezyne's cheaper offerings. It is very good value and can currently be found online from several sites for under £30. However, the Moon Meteor C3 mentioned earlier is a little cheaper and also reviewed very well, and though it only has a 300lm full beam it's pretty bright according to the road.cc beam comparison engine (and Shaun who tested it), and has a slightly longer run-time on high of 1:30. If you want something more powerful for longer commutes or night rides without spending too much more, Kryptonite's Street F-450 is worth a look, as is the latest Cateye Volt 500XC I've also been testing (review to come).

Verdict

A good value light that is ideal for urban commuting, but a disappointing battery life