The Knog Full-Monty Lighting Setup: Blinder X 2300, R-150 & Bandicoot 250

I'm willing to wager that when it comes to technological progression, few bike components or accessories have advanced as much as lights in the last twenty years. Gone are those delicate halogen bulbs you can't touch, waterbottle-sized batteries, and run times limited to a quick blast through the woods. Now, even mid-range lights provide more power than most riders will ever need—unless you're in a group of rides where someone has a crazy bright setup.

My old Exposure Joystick and Toro setup has served me well and remains my benchmark for what I want in a light. But they have seen better days and are not holding a charge like they used to after ten years of lighting the way—it was time to explore something new.

Knog has massively expanded their range since I first became aware of the brand. They are perhaps best known for their silicone-mounted “lights to be seen by” commuting bike options, which are still in their line up of goodies. There's also an option to cover nearly every base of lighting any cyclist would need—from mountain biking to getting you home after a few extra (hours) at the pub.

I wanted to cover the full-spectrum of lighting this time: front, rear, including a helmet-mounted light. I needed something that could be flexible and cover me from winter commuting to a couple of hours of fun technical mountain bike night riding. I needed a bikepacking setup that could handle a few hours of darkness for a handful of days—ideally without needing to charge anything.

I settled on Knog's top-of-the-line Blinder X 2300 for my handlebars, Blinder R-150 for the rear and a bit of curveball—the Bandicoot Run 250 for my helmet, which Knog primarily markets as a running headtorch, but also, recommend for bikepacking.

Up Front: The Blinder X 2300

There's no prizes for guessing the claimed number of lumens (lm) possessed by Knog's Blinder X 2300 for $269.95 (USD). Compared to some modern max outputs, it isn't mind-bogglingly high, but is ample for virtually all uses and feels about right in the cost-per-lumen ratio. Looking at my old Exposure Toro as an example, their current Toro MK15 model (3800 lm) costs $385 (USD) and their Six Pack MK14 has a frightening 5800 lm and just shy of an equally scary $535 (USD)

Brighter Is Not Always Better

The first thing to point out—more lumens is not necessarily better. The shape or beam pattern of the light is almost more important, as is battery life. The Blinder is primarily designed for off-road riding, which requires a balance between reach —how far the light punches through the darkness—plus an even beam pattern wide enough to illuminate beyond the edges of the trail starting from just beyond my front wheel.

Knog claims the Blinder will punch out maximum brightness for 1.8 hours. Knock the lumens down one step to 1000 and you'll get 5 hours, down once more to 350 and you'll get 15 hours. Now that's pretty impressive.

Out of the box, the Blinder has a pleasingly high-end feel to its finish. The light and mount are made from machined aluminium and the light itself has a pleasingly small form factor that belies how brightly it can shine. It comes with a wired remote switch to flick between modes and lets you know when you are at max output via a colour-coded backlight. The separate 10,000mAh battery has an indicator built into the off/on switch and is charged via a USB-C port. Knog includes both a helmet and a bar mount (with shims for 31.8mm and 35mm bars) as well as rubberised velcro straps to mount the battery to your frame. Should you want to run the light on your helmet, Knog also includes a 700mm extension cable to allow you to stow the battery in a hydration pack or rear pocket.

The Fit-Up

Fitting is straightforward and I like the approach that Knog have taken with their bar mount, by allowing the light to pivot separately from the mount, allowing it to run the light above, below or directly in front of the bars. When mounted above the bar, it had just enough height to clear my bikepacking front roll, however, on long trips, I think I'd still want to run it on some type of extension, but I appreciated the options. For the most part, I ran the light slung low under my bars. Rotating the light requires you to loosen off an allen bolt to move around a splined interface. This works well to prevent any vibrations loosening the light, but does make on-the-fly tuning easy. In the end, once I set the rough position with the allen key, I rotated the clamp on the bars to dial in my setup while out on the trail.

Trail Notes

I was impressed by the clarity and quality of the beam. There is a centralised bright spot, which softens and broadens at the periphery, with no noticeable dark spots. I most frequently ran at 1000 lm—which was the sweet spot between brightness and battery life, amply bright enough for the trails and speeds I ride. I only found myself reaching for the full-beam on high-speed singletrack and got into the habit of flipping brightness when dropping my seatpost. It would have been nice to have some way of programming the remote to cycle between the top two brightest settings. As it was, it was necessary to click through the low mode to get from max to one level lower. Not a deal breaker, but mildly annoying while on the trails. There are three flashing strobe settings accessible via a double click on the remote.

Realistically, I'm not sure what utility the strobing modes offer on a light that is ultimately designed for off-road riding. I can understand offering a single setting as an SOS beacon, hidden out of the usual cycle, but three feels like overkill.

Speaking about niggles, I didn't try the Blinder on my helmet, as I prefer not to have a cable dangling down behind my head into a pack, especially as for short rides I often don't use them. In this case, the remote switch has to be strapped somewhere else on the helmet if you want to use it—which would be quite the annoyance—in the end, probably pointless. The LED battery health display also becomes somewhat useless when out of sight.

Short On Time

I'm on the fence about the separate battery pack in general. The downside is yet another thing to strap to the bike and I'm always wary of the chance of snagging the cable and/or water seeping into the connection over time, mind you, there was no evidence of this at all during my initial rides. There are some positives though—one can easily charge the battery pack without removing the perfectly set up light from the bars. If you wish, Knog sells separate battery packs at $110 (USD) should you need to swap mid ride.

While my regular riding doesn't warrant two batteries, there were a couple of times where I'd have liked an extra 50% or so life in the Blinder. Claimed burn times felt about accurate, but in the depths of winter in freezing temperatures, there was a noticeable drop off and I found myself with a little bit of “range anxiety” creeping in. At $269.95 (USD) it packs a punch for the price, with good battery life, secure mounting, remote switch, and plenty of power options.

On The Rear: The Blinder R-150

Rear lights aren't as sexy as front lights—that's simply just the way it is. For me they fall into the tubeless sealant or new chain category of purchases. They are entirely necessary and while a poor product will detract from your ride a good one won't necessarily enhance it. Compared to the need for a front light to illuminate the way, a rear light has a simple job: make sure you are visible.

To achieve this, the Knog Blinder R-150 has a 150 lm on high mode and four LEDs designed to be visible from the side as well from directly behind. That said, the max 150 lm output happens when the light is in a strobing mode. The highest constant light mode is a modest 35 lm which only lasts for 3.5 hours. Despite this, it's bright enough to be visible in sunny daytime conditions, and that's all you can ask for—except for some extra battery life.

Most people will use one of the 8 strobing modes, and the constant mode. Battery life for these varies from 7.5 hours for the max 150 lm stobe to and eco mode which squeeze out 50 hours from the USB rechargeable battery. I'm not convinced that all of these are necessary and I'll be honest, if it weren't for my need to “test” everything, I wouldn't have had a clue which mode I was in. I did like their idea of a “peloton” mode which is deliberately less bright so as not to blind your mates on a club ride.

Fitting & Charging

The R-150 is as simple as it gets—a silicon band and clip hug the seat post and I experienced no slipping during testing. However, I was less enamoured with my charging experience. A stripped down USB-A is built into the light. On the plus side, it needs no cables to charge, just plug it into any old USB-A charging port. Everything is transitioning towards USB-C, which is already manded in the EU in an attempt to reduce e-waste. I just bought a new iPhone, and I can live with one high powered USB-C charger, and one cable to rule them all. However, with the R-150 I need an old-school USB-A charger for my rear light—ARGH! While this ranks high on the “first world problem” list, be aware that the USB connector on the light is somewhat exposed to the elements and could corrode over time. There was no evidence of this during my short ownership, but would be best to clean and wipe before plugging it in the charger.

Mount & Forget

Charging niggles aside, the light has been flawless. On one of the lower power settings, I'm able to get my full week of commuting done (10 hours) without thinking about charging. Once mounted, one pretty much forgets it's there until time to charge. At $64.95 (USD) it's full of features and a reasonable battery life, even with the old-school USB-A charging port.

On The Head: The Bandicoot 250

As I mentioned earlier, the Knog Bandicoot 250 was a bit of a wild card option for my choice of helmet light. It is not primarily designed as a riding lamp, but Knog do list it on their website, bikepacking section.

The Bandicoot leans into Knog's heritage—it is essentially a large silicone band in which a headtorch slots into. The band is adjustable via a toggle at the rear and has enough wiggle room to fit around a helmet comfortably. I did find that Bandicoot best works with peaked helmets. While it sat reasonably well on my road helmet, it tended to creep up over time.

As with the other lights, the Bandicoot has a multitude of modes, but the max 250 lm setting lasts for an impressive 8 hours. There are three LEDs built into the torch, which allows for nice 40-meter reach according to Knog. There's also a red LED for reading at night or as a possible emergency rear light in a pinch.

USB-A Again? Argh!

Charging the Bandicoot requires you to pop the LED light out of its silicone cocoon, to reveal yet another USB-A adapter. So once again, it's great that no cables are needed, but frustrating to fit into my USB-C world. Even more frustrating with a model marketed as a bikepacking headtorch. The portable battery bank I used on trips only has USB-C outputs so I'd need an adapter to charge the Bandicoot while on an adventure.

Joy To Use

I had low expectations for the Bandicoot Run 250 as it's a full 800 lm less than my old headtorch—which will be quite noticeable while on the trail. I like using a helmet-mounted light in conjunction with a main bar light. It's great for looking around the corner to see what's coming up before turning the bars and filling in dark shadows from different angles. The 250 lm is a bit sparse for this but the Bandicoot still copes admirably in this situation. Caveat is that at only 60g, there's no noticeable weight on my helmet.

On slower trails, the Bandicoot was all I would ever need, and when commuting I appreciated the extra visibility that an additional light at a driver's eye level offers.

Recently the weather hasn't been conducive to bikepacking trips, but I love the ability I'll have to whip the light off my helmet and pop it on my head for those close up tasks like setting up camp and cooking, Battery life in lower brightness modes is good enough to last an entire trip without worry—which is good given the charging requirements.

Job Well Done

While I'll probably continue to use something a little brighter than the Bandicoot for technical riding, it will be my go-to for everything else. I love that it takes up very little room in a bag and weighs next-to-nothing. It can be fitted to a helmet in seconds without any tools or extra mounts and quickly pop back onto your bare head instantly. In an ideal world, I'd love to be able to angle the beam a little, but it sits just fine most of the time.

Overall

I've been impressed with Knog's latest offerings. While not quite perfect, they offer a genuine alternative beyond their classic commuting market. I'm happy that all three lights have become my go-to lights as the positives out-weigh the niggly negatives, but I will probably curse Knog every time I have to charge the R0-150 and Bandicoot.