Ay-Up mtb Lights
Almost every week I ride a couple of times during the evening hours which means a good set of lights are required for the winter months. For 3 years I used a Lumicycle HID and had no complaints until recently when it needed to be repaired twice within 6 weeks and finally died. I borrowed a set of 4 year old ‘Halford’s Specials’ and started checking out alternative lights. By coincidence a couple of our gang had picked up some Ay-Up LEDs at an mtb event in Plymouth and raved about them, then two more folks bought them and had nothing but praise.
A quick internet search pulled up numerous reviews all of which were positive. So I took the plunge and ordered the £240.00 mtb set in gun metal, they arrived the following day all wrapped in a neoprene wallet/bag. There is a hell of a lot of kit for the money, in fact I’ve never been able to get it all back into the neoprene bag! Two light sets (wide angle and narrow beam), two 3 hour batteries and a 6 hour battery, double charger, car charger and all fixtures and fittings to mount the lights on both handle bars and helmet.
Everything is very small and light weight, the narrow beam light and a 3 hour battery worn on the helmet are just not noticeable.
Why did I choose the Ay-Ups? A major selling point for me was that both lights and all batteries are very robust (the site claims indestructible) and waterproof they can be washed in the kitchen sink, or left on the bike when it is hosed down. The lights and batteries are small and don’t protrude from the handlebars and are already ‘crash proven’, although a separate unit using the velcro straps the battery can be attached anywhere so there are no trailing cables to get snagged on anything. Having separate handlebar and helmet lights is great and I would not go back to a single light.
What are they like in use? Very good with only one noticeable downside. The light output is more than enough for both trundling and blatting singletrack and 3 hours of battery life is sufficient for my regular evening rides. I have the wide angle unit on the handlebars and the battery on the stem I tend to adjust the lights individually so the light is overlapped illuminating ground immediately in front of the bike and ten feet away. The narrow light and a battery are on my helmet. In my experience it is better to have an adequate light and a long lasting battery rather than the brightest light ever invented and a two hour battery. The Ay-Ups excel on both fronts. The only downside I have come across is the handlebar mount. The mount uses a rubber shim that is zip-tied onto the bar at each side of the stem, as soon as water got under the shim it began to rotate around the bars. I refitted the shim both with the shiny side up and down in each case the result was exactly the same, as soon as water worked its way under the shim it began rotating around the bars. It now flops about all over the place and I’m constantly redoing the zip-ties.
How do they compare with an HID? This is subjective. I think the HID has a brighter and wider ‘throw’ of light and tends to illuminate everything in front of it. The Ay-Up LEDs give a narrower beam of light (even the wide angle unit), however I think it is more penetrating then the HID. Which is preferable? I’m happy with either and would not have bought the Ay-Ups if I had a working HID. The fact that the Ay-Ups use an LED light source is irrelevant to me.
I’m happy with the Ay-Ups and since I got mine another two of our gang have also gone the Ay-Up route. There can’t be a better recommendation than that! Fix the bar mounting and it would easily be 10/10 rather than 8/10.
There is a great review of the Ay-up’s on the Muddy Moles site which goes into a lot of technical detail. Click Here.
