Exposure Blaze MK3 With ReAKT And Peloton

The Exposure Blaze MK3 with ReAKT and Peloton features gives you possibly the best commuting and general riding rear light. It's easy to use – once you've figured out the settings – and it lasts for ages. It is a little on the pricey side, though.

• Pros: Peloton and ReAKT both function as claimed and work well; great durability; long battery life
• Cons: Not cheap at all

Exposure's ReAKT technology was a feature that we saw on the MK2. It worked there and it works well here too. The light can detect braking thanks to the Ambient Kinetic Technology and put the light into a flashing mode to increase visibility.

> Find your nearest dealer here

The ReAKT setting also adjusts the brightness of the light depending on the conditions. In bright sunlight, it gets noticeably brighter, giving more contrast for better visibility. Does it improve your safety while riding? I'm not sure, but it's great to have when heavy clouds break to reveal bright sunshine.

The Peloton mode is the new feature here and it's focused on group riding. The Blaze will sense when another rider is positioned on your wheel by reacting to the increased brightness of their front light and dimming. It does work, but it's dependent on all the riders having lights. As a result, I was selective about when I used Peloton.

With all these features, initially choosing settings is a little more complicated than I'm used to. It would have helped if I'd read the instruction manual as this demystifies the process... Everything is controlled from the single function button. Give it a quick double press and you turn the light on, picking up the last chosen setting (high/daybright, medium or low). Selecting which of these three settings, or programs, you want is a simple case of holding the button down from off and counting the light's flashes. One flash gives you the brightest mode, two for the medium setting, and three for low.

To enable the ReAKT or Peloton features, you've got to hold the function button down for four or five flashes respectively. They don't work together, so it's one or the other. Beyond this, six flashes disables these modes.

For the test period, I settled on the high setting with ReAKT enabled. This daybright mode kicks out a strong flash for 12 hours (a single click turns any of the constant settings to flashing). That's plenty for a full week of riding for me.

For the times that I headed out on the dark Mendip lanes, program 2/medium was easily bright enough and a quick look over my shoulder saw the road and hedges bathed in red light.

> Buyer's Guide: 16 of the best rear cycling lights

The claimed battery life is pretty good, with a minimum run-time of 6 hours on constant high, and a max of 48 hours on flashing low.

Remaining battery is visible from the traffic light colours that display through the function button. Green is between 100% and 50%, amber is 50%-25%, red is 25%-5% and flashing red is lower than 5%. At this point, the light will automatically switch to low flashing to squeeze out as much time as possible.

If you forget what program gives what burn time, Exposure has handily laser-etched the details into the casing.

That brings me on to durability. The aluminium casing is much more robust than a plastic shell and Exposure is happy to back up its light with a two-year warranty. I've not dropped this yet, but it's nice to have the harder shell if you're blessed with butter fingers.

Mounting the light is simple and although it's a low tech system, it works easily and holds the light in place over rough ground. The rubber band fastening will allow it to fit all modern oddly shaped seatposts.

The MK3 gets the same 1,500mAh lithium-ion battery as the MK2 ReAKT, and the only change is the addition of Peloton. As a feature, it's a great idea, but it's reliant on all the other riders in your group having a front light running. Testing this feature meant asking a friend to sit on the wheel with their light running.

It works, dimming the light to a comfortable level with the wheel-sucking rider's light flashing or on constant, and if your regular group ride is more organised than mine, it's quite a clever feature to have.

Although the price is high, it's not the most you can spend on a rear light. Hope's District+ is £130 and shows the extra burn-time that you get from an external battery pack – '15-200 hr burn time'. For pure commuting, the Cycliq Fly6 (£169.99) adds HD video but reduces the light's capacity.

On its own, the Blaze is a great light with long battery life and very good brightness. Both the ReAKT and Peloton technologies work well and if you frequently ride in a group with lights, you – and your riding mates – will be pleased.

Verdict

Bright, long battery life and easy to use with clever technology