Welcome to the next exciting review on products provided to us by our friends at Mountain Bikes Direct. We've teamed up with one of Australia's best online mountain bike stores to bring you in depth reviews on the latest and most intriguing parts and accessories you can purchase for your bike.
The values shared by the staff at Rotorburn and Mountain Bikes Direct are the same; we have a huge passion for mountain biking! It's our pleasure to be in a great position to test, review and share our in depth details on some great products available from Mountain Bikes Direct.
Cleanskin Duo 2200 lumen front LED light
Item: Cleanskin Duo 2200 lumen front LED light
Purchased From: Mountain Bikes Direct (Click here for the product page)
Purchase Price (approx): $89.95
Usage: All cycling disciplines
Product outline: The Cleanskin Duo 2200 Lumen light is for mountain biking and / or road cycling at night. The twin beams offer an amazing spread and great forward lighting making whatever ride you do very well lit.
Pros: So easy to setup, well presented constructed, great battery life, excellent full beam performance, has great mounting options and generous cable length.
Cons: Has a blinking setting that is way too bright to use in traffic making it a useless. The battery straps are fine but a little primitive.
Fitting: There’s two options; one is a straight up GoPro mount that screws to the base of the light then slides and clicks into your GoPro mount on your helmet. The other option is to use the curved rubber based mount on your handlebars being bound tight with the strong rubber ring or using the same ring to mount it to your helmet with the included curved mount base that velcro straps through the vents of your helmet. It’s very versatile mounting options will suit any application you have, even for using it just as a light.
Summary: Lets face it, you need a good amount of light to see what you’re doing on a mountain bike trail or on the road. You can be considerate and run your light on a lower setting so it isn’t as bright in oncoming traffic’s eyes but nah, you want to light the place up. With that said, I trialled the light on it’s lowest of three settings and being the twin beam meant I had good enough vision forward and enough light on the edge of the trail to see what was coming up with the light mounted on the top of my helmet and the battery zipped up in my jacket side pocket. The lead is long enough without using the available 60cm cable extension but it does get a bit tight every now and then. It’s worth noting that I wear glasses for close work and haven’t got great night eyes but don’t wear glasses when riding.
I tested the low setting on a short descent then a climb and found it wasn’t enough brightness on the descent. Luckily though, the high setting is ace and I have plenty of light forward and to the side with this light mounted on my helmet. It would operate just as well mounted to your handlebars but I prefer to run the light in my line of sight; hence the helmet mount.
The Duo has four settings all of which have a pretty bloody good estimated battery life. The high setting will run for over 3 hours, the middle for 15 and the low for 30 hours. There’s a strobe setting that can last for four hours but you’d have some sort of brain malfunction if you had that blinking in your view for more than one minute. To test the battery claims, I’ve run the light only on the high setting for a few rides after a full battery charge and I’ve got a full hour one night, two days in a row I had a forty minute ride and the final ride that week was thirty minutes. I charged it after those rides using the provided wall charger and it took about five hours to get a green light saying it was charged. In my experience with heaps of lights, thats about the time it takes to charge the 8volt Li-on battery.
On the trail, the high setting is bloody brilliant. The light forward is great and doesn’t hinder your plans to ride top speed into a section plus the lighting provided by the Duo two lenses gives great lighting to the side of the trail, thats really important to have forward and side awareness, crucial actually. Naturally though, there is not enough light coming from anything you can safely wear that will light the night doing a top speed. For example, a nearby hill I ride on my roadie is close to a 80km speed coming back down. My Garmin did say I was doing 75km with no wind but I was not super comfortable with the lighting, it wasn’t strong enough that you could avoid something on the road or an animal but hey, you’re doing well to miss that stuff at that speed in broad daylight.
It’s also water resistant meaning you can ride in the rain, very much a necessary feature for commuting.
I’ve used so many different sorts of lights over the years and always found the cheaper Ebay style lights to be pretty good and a lot less than other top end lights claiming superior performance. The Cleanskin lights are very much a better light than anything under $100 though, the box comes with everything you need to light, mount, charge and store your lights. It’s very neat, has very well covered cables with no areas seemingly missing that expert touch in finish and it performs brilliantly. It’s very light on your helmet too, the light and battery weigh 330 grams meaning you’ll barely notice it. So would I say that lights have stayed the same size and weight over all these years but now perform better? Yes and no, the introduction of LED is the big factor in this one that makes the Duo the best light I’ve used. I’ve had Ayups, Cree’s, tried a Magicshine and all sorts of underpowered heavy crap in between. The Cleanskin Duo is most certainly on par with the top end stuff and it’s under $100!
Now, to make this review even more in depth, I’ve been spending time testing and comparing the smaller Cleanskin Solo 1000 lumen LED light. Read on!
Cleanskin Solo 1000 lumen front LED light
Item: Cleanskin Solo 1000 lumen front LED light
Purchased From: Mountain Bikes Direct (Click here for the product page)
Purchase Price (approx): $49.95
Usage: All cycling disciplines
Product outline: The Cleanskin Solo 1000 Lumen LED light is for mountain biking and / or road cycling at night. The single beam light offers a very small compact package to light up your ride.
Pros: So easy to setup, well presented constructed, great battery life, USB charging, has great mounting options and generous cable length.
Cons: The single beam is not as fantastic as the Duo beam, has a blinking setting that is way too bright to use in traffic making it a useless. The battery straps are fine but a little primitive.
Fitting: There’s two options; one is a straight up GoPro mount that screws to the base of the light then slides and clicks into your GoPro mount on your helmet. The other option is to use the curved rubber based mount on your handlebars being bound tight with the strong rubber ring or using the same ring to mount it to your helmet with the included curved mount base that velcro straps through the vents of your helmet. It’s very versatile mounting options will suit any application you have, even for using it just as a light.
Summary: Firstly, I won’t compare it to the Duo beam, they are two different lights. The Solo is better used as a light on your helmet or handlebars in areas where you may have some extra lighting from street lights or even another light on your bike or helmet. It is quite capable as a stand alone light but is better with some assistance. As you’d imagine, the single beam offers great spot lighting; a single point that is well light forward of the light. It has great performance in tighter areas of a heavily wooded trailas you’re not getting light echoes from the surrounding trees that you don’t especially need lit up. I wouldn’t recommend this light as a bar mounted light though, it needs to be moving and lighting up what you’re seeing as the single beam is very direct.
Similar to the Duo, the battery life is fantastic. The 4.2V Li-on battery on high beam alleges to last for close to five hours, the middle setting is twenty and the low beam is thirty eight hours! Thats a huge battery life! I’d like to think you’d probably charge it at least once a week if you’re commuting though, you’d surely forget to charge it after a week or so riding and then it’s light’s out.
Now, the comparison between the Duo 2200 lumen and the Solo 1000 lumen. I’ve included some photos but it’s quite tricky to showthe huge difference between the low and high settings but you can see the extra spread from the Duo 2200 lumen. I tried to focus the beam on the same part of the trail just to match it even.
What have they got in common? They use the same excellent mounting options, both have the same cable lengths, both are an LED light, both have the same Cleanskin build quality.
What are the differences? The Duo is two LED’s, the Solo is one meaning the Duo has more spread, they have different batteries, the Solo is lighter.
What light should I buy? The Solo is great and has a place in the market for people looking for a substantial light that will get them to and from their destination comfortably. Think of commuting, basic trails without features breaking up the trail and even riders in a group of people all using good lights. The Duo is very much more of a performance light with lasting battery power even with the Duo LED offering more of a wide view and blowing the bark off tree’s with it’s power. My suggestion is very obvious, the Duo is for the rider needing the extra light, the Solo is for the rider just needing a light. Still, the Solo is far better than the other lights I’ve used in that stupidly low price range so it holds it’s ground as a player in that field. The Duo is a light for roadies doing long dark rides and all-mountain epics for hours on end.
I would not waste your effort researching top end lights when this setup from Cleanskin kicks so many goals. Even for the riders among us doing solo 24 hour races, you can absolutely afford to have two or three spare charged batteries to get you through an overnight race and you’ll have tons of cash left over.
See the full range of Cleanskin products available at Mountain Bikes Direct here.
The values shared by the staff at Rotorburn and Mountain Bikes Direct are the same; we have a huge passion for mountain biking! It's our pleasure to be in a great position to test, review and share our in depth details on some great products available from Mountain Bikes Direct.
Cleanskin Duo 2200 lumen front LED light
Item: Cleanskin Duo 2200 lumen front LED light
Purchased From: Mountain Bikes Direct (Click here for the product page)
Purchase Price (approx): $89.95
Usage: All cycling disciplines
Product outline: The Cleanskin Duo 2200 Lumen light is for mountain biking and / or road cycling at night. The twin beams offer an amazing spread and great forward lighting making whatever ride you do very well lit.
Pros: So easy to setup, well presented constructed, great battery life, excellent full beam performance, has great mounting options and generous cable length.
Cons: Has a blinking setting that is way too bright to use in traffic making it a useless. The battery straps are fine but a little primitive.
Fitting: There’s two options; one is a straight up GoPro mount that screws to the base of the light then slides and clicks into your GoPro mount on your helmet. The other option is to use the curved rubber based mount on your handlebars being bound tight with the strong rubber ring or using the same ring to mount it to your helmet with the included curved mount base that velcro straps through the vents of your helmet. It’s very versatile mounting options will suit any application you have, even for using it just as a light.
Summary: Lets face it, you need a good amount of light to see what you’re doing on a mountain bike trail or on the road. You can be considerate and run your light on a lower setting so it isn’t as bright in oncoming traffic’s eyes but nah, you want to light the place up. With that said, I trialled the light on it’s lowest of three settings and being the twin beam meant I had good enough vision forward and enough light on the edge of the trail to see what was coming up with the light mounted on the top of my helmet and the battery zipped up in my jacket side pocket. The lead is long enough without using the available 60cm cable extension but it does get a bit tight every now and then. It’s worth noting that I wear glasses for close work and haven’t got great night eyes but don’t wear glasses when riding.
I tested the low setting on a short descent then a climb and found it wasn’t enough brightness on the descent. Luckily though, the high setting is ace and I have plenty of light forward and to the side with this light mounted on my helmet. It would operate just as well mounted to your handlebars but I prefer to run the light in my line of sight; hence the helmet mount.
The Duo has four settings all of which have a pretty bloody good estimated battery life. The high setting will run for over 3 hours, the middle for 15 and the low for 30 hours. There’s a strobe setting that can last for four hours but you’d have some sort of brain malfunction if you had that blinking in your view for more than one minute. To test the battery claims, I’ve run the light only on the high setting for a few rides after a full battery charge and I’ve got a full hour one night, two days in a row I had a forty minute ride and the final ride that week was thirty minutes. I charged it after those rides using the provided wall charger and it took about five hours to get a green light saying it was charged. In my experience with heaps of lights, thats about the time it takes to charge the 8volt Li-on battery.
On the trail, the high setting is bloody brilliant. The light forward is great and doesn’t hinder your plans to ride top speed into a section plus the lighting provided by the Duo two lenses gives great lighting to the side of the trail, thats really important to have forward and side awareness, crucial actually. Naturally though, there is not enough light coming from anything you can safely wear that will light the night doing a top speed. For example, a nearby hill I ride on my roadie is close to a 80km speed coming back down. My Garmin did say I was doing 75km with no wind but I was not super comfortable with the lighting, it wasn’t strong enough that you could avoid something on the road or an animal but hey, you’re doing well to miss that stuff at that speed in broad daylight.
It’s also water resistant meaning you can ride in the rain, very much a necessary feature for commuting.
I’ve used so many different sorts of lights over the years and always found the cheaper Ebay style lights to be pretty good and a lot less than other top end lights claiming superior performance. The Cleanskin lights are very much a better light than anything under $100 though, the box comes with everything you need to light, mount, charge and store your lights. It’s very neat, has very well covered cables with no areas seemingly missing that expert touch in finish and it performs brilliantly. It’s very light on your helmet too, the light and battery weigh 330 grams meaning you’ll barely notice it. So would I say that lights have stayed the same size and weight over all these years but now perform better? Yes and no, the introduction of LED is the big factor in this one that makes the Duo the best light I’ve used. I’ve had Ayups, Cree’s, tried a Magicshine and all sorts of underpowered heavy crap in between. The Cleanskin Duo is most certainly on par with the top end stuff and it’s under $100!
Now, to make this review even more in depth, I’ve been spending time testing and comparing the smaller Cleanskin Solo 1000 lumen LED light. Read on!
Cleanskin Solo 1000 lumen front LED light
Item: Cleanskin Solo 1000 lumen front LED light
Purchased From: Mountain Bikes Direct (Click here for the product page)
Purchase Price (approx): $49.95
Usage: All cycling disciplines
Product outline: The Cleanskin Solo 1000 Lumen LED light is for mountain biking and / or road cycling at night. The single beam light offers a very small compact package to light up your ride.
Pros: So easy to setup, well presented constructed, great battery life, USB charging, has great mounting options and generous cable length.
Cons: The single beam is not as fantastic as the Duo beam, has a blinking setting that is way too bright to use in traffic making it a useless. The battery straps are fine but a little primitive.
Fitting: There’s two options; one is a straight up GoPro mount that screws to the base of the light then slides and clicks into your GoPro mount on your helmet. The other option is to use the curved rubber based mount on your handlebars being bound tight with the strong rubber ring or using the same ring to mount it to your helmet with the included curved mount base that velcro straps through the vents of your helmet. It’s very versatile mounting options will suit any application you have, even for using it just as a light.
Summary: Firstly, I won’t compare it to the Duo beam, they are two different lights. The Solo is better used as a light on your helmet or handlebars in areas where you may have some extra lighting from street lights or even another light on your bike or helmet. It is quite capable as a stand alone light but is better with some assistance. As you’d imagine, the single beam offers great spot lighting; a single point that is well light forward of the light. It has great performance in tighter areas of a heavily wooded trailas you’re not getting light echoes from the surrounding trees that you don’t especially need lit up. I wouldn’t recommend this light as a bar mounted light though, it needs to be moving and lighting up what you’re seeing as the single beam is very direct.
Similar to the Duo, the battery life is fantastic. The 4.2V Li-on battery on high beam alleges to last for close to five hours, the middle setting is twenty and the low beam is thirty eight hours! Thats a huge battery life! I’d like to think you’d probably charge it at least once a week if you’re commuting though, you’d surely forget to charge it after a week or so riding and then it’s light’s out.
Now, the comparison between the Duo 2200 lumen and the Solo 1000 lumen. I’ve included some photos but it’s quite tricky to showthe huge difference between the low and high settings but you can see the extra spread from the Duo 2200 lumen. I tried to focus the beam on the same part of the trail just to match it even.
What have they got in common? They use the same excellent mounting options, both have the same cable lengths, both are an LED light, both have the same Cleanskin build quality.
What are the differences? The Duo is two LED’s, the Solo is one meaning the Duo has more spread, they have different batteries, the Solo is lighter.
What light should I buy? The Solo is great and has a place in the market for people looking for a substantial light that will get them to and from their destination comfortably. Think of commuting, basic trails without features breaking up the trail and even riders in a group of people all using good lights. The Duo is very much more of a performance light with lasting battery power even with the Duo LED offering more of a wide view and blowing the bark off tree’s with it’s power. My suggestion is very obvious, the Duo is for the rider needing the extra light, the Solo is for the rider just needing a light. Still, the Solo is far better than the other lights I’ve used in that stupidly low price range so it holds it’s ground as a player in that field. The Duo is a light for roadies doing long dark rides and all-mountain epics for hours on end.
I would not waste your effort researching top end lights when this setup from Cleanskin kicks so many goals. Even for the riders among us doing solo 24 hour races, you can absolutely afford to have two or three spare charged batteries to get you through an overnight race and you’ll have tons of cash left over.
See the full range of Cleanskin products available at Mountain Bikes Direct here.
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